At the start of the year 2019, I was excited. I was excited because I had set goals. I felt empowered. I was ready to dominate and conquer the world, 2019 indeed felt like “my year”. It’s less than 3 months to the end of my said year, and the little accountant in me is trying to hold me accountable to my earlier plans on dominating and conquering. What can I say? Let’s just thank God I’m still breathing because it’s only the living that can actualise set goals.
You might fall into the category of people who set goals for 2019, made plans on how to execute these goals and have actualised 80% of these goals. This piece might not particularly be for you because as much as I hate to admit this, we are not on the same level and you should be entirely proud of yourself. You might fall into the category I belong to and might even lead. If you can’t even bring yourself to count how many of your set goals you have achieved, this piece is definitely for you and I then.
The year 2019 is almost over and as you can imagine, my palms are already itching to set a new set of goals for year 2020. You might take it that I never learn. I have come to realize that too but in setting my goals for year 2020, here are things I would do differently which I hope will be of benefit to you and I.
I will set SMART goals. SMART spells out Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound. It’s not enough to say I will be rich by the end of the year, spell out I should have so so so amount. I hate to break this to you but saying you want be as half as rich as dangote in a year is not realistic as a student with one source of income. Remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Set achievable and realistic goals!.
I will leave plenty of room for sleep, food and exercise. I forgive you if you rolled your eyes at that. It might mean one of two things, you always make provison for these in your plans or you are being too hard on yourself. This is not to push me to laziness but if like me, you set out for 2019 with the mentality of “I am a machine, I will work hard, there’s no room for slacking” , that must be the chief reason why we have nothing to show for the year 2019. It’s difficult to achieve goals with a fatigued body and mind. Ease up!.
My goals for 2019 were lengthy, re-reading those goals, I was convinced I thought 2019 was “my last year on earth” and not “my year”. I get that we want to do more, we want to push ourselves but sometimes our goals border on suicide and it’s not a bad idea to sit back and cut some of these goals short. Infact setting goals with a shorter time frame might be the answer. There’s no ultimate rule that says goals must be set on a yearly basis. Break your goals down to a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly or even a quaterly basis if you may. If for anything it makes appraisal easy.
In the year 2020,I plan to celebrate my small wins. We often fail to take cognizance of the “small” achievements because we are too focused on the big things. Celebrating the small wins has a positive psychological effect on us. It enables us reward ourselves which in turn pushes us to do more. Set big goals, set small goals. Celebrate the big wins, celebrate the small wins.