I spend a lot of time reading books on personal development and business, and something I have learned is that our success, whether in business, professionally or personally, is not accidental or due to luck. Yes, that’s right, your success and mine is wholly dependent on us, to a large extent. Learning this, or more importantly unlearning leaving my future to chance, was a critical pivot for me. And following this awakening, I also learned that success is planned with intention and achieved with careful action.

Planning for success can feel a bit counterintuitive, initially; however, once you change your thinking around this, or at least be willing to view success in a new way, you may begin to appreciate that building success is something we learn and practice. Success is not something meant for someone else who readily tells you all about it on social media. No, success is both a goal and process.

Success as both a goal and process means we can set ourselves up for success. One way is to set three big goals for you to work on this year. Not New Year Resolutions that are often vague and thus are no longer exciting or interesting by the 15th of January, but three specific, measurable goals. For the past two years, I have used this system as part of Nicole McClaren Campbell’s Goal Accelerator Club and it works amazingly well. So, in mid December I started thinking about my three goals for 2023. And these goals will be achievable because of the work I did in the last quarter of 2022, when I laid a strong foundation for my success this year.

And why set three goals? Well, as Nicole explains, three goals are manageable. Identifying more than three goals can quickly lead to a lack of focus. As well, three areas of focus do not cause you to feel overwhelmed so, instead, you can be laser focussed and see results quickly, which encourages you to continue working on your goals. Yes, being goal-focused ensures we achieve our annual goals.

Being goal-focussed works best if you have spent some time reflecting on the huge vision you have for your life. Stay with me and don’t zone out! Yes, creating a huge, bold vision gives you a roadmap that will help you navigate through life. It also becomes the ground under your feet. It provides stability and surety on the days when you start questioning yourself, or when fear shows up to steal your dreams. Being able to check in and remind yourself of where you are headed helps to steady the uncertainty and quiet the doubts. This is the power of having a big dream or vision.

Once you have identified your three big and sometimes scary goals that are connected to your personal vision, you need to put together a plan of action because goals without actions are dreams and the world is filled with too many unrealized dreams! Break down your goals into smaller goals and think about the actions you need to take to realize these smaller goals. Consider when you will complete these actions, during which month or quarter of 2023 and assign dates to them. Yes, get out your planner and assign deadlines to the actions. I prefer using a paper planner because when we write things out using pen and paper, it triggers our neurocognition that tells our brain that what we are writing is significant. (I’m a scientist so I have to talk about this!). Old school pen and paper may be more helpful than a digital planner, but use whichever one works best for you.

The final part of an annual goal planning process is to review and evaluate your progress each quarter and annually. Spending time to reflect and ask yourself what worked well, what made you proud, what you need to change are important. I am always surprised in these reviews when I start listing my wins for the quarter, how many things I accomplished and had forgotten about! I think as humans we are somehow wired to focus on stress, worry and disappointments and quickly forget about our successes, so remember to celebrate the Ws and how great success feels!!

Thank you for reading! Let me know about your annual process; what works well for you?

michelle@mvdconsulting.ca

Michelle