Welcome to another exciting year! To enable us to achieve the most of the year ahead we need to define our intentions/goals for the year. Before we do that I would recommend reflecting on the year that has just been. I do this by answering four simple questions based on the last year:
1 What went well?
2 What did not go so well? (What did I learn?)
3 What questions or areas for discussion do I have?
4 What am I grateful for?
By reviewing the past we can acknowledge our achievements, reflect on our learnings and identify what we need to do to improve for the next year. A great segway for planning the future.
The first part to planning for the year ahead is to review your longer term goals. Are they still relevant, do they need updating or changing, do they still take you towards your purpose?
There are three ranges I would consider, they are:
- 100 years from now. You have left this life and looking back assessing what you have left behind and who you have touched, what you have experienced, where you have travelled and who you had relationships. State it in terms of what you have achieved.
- 5 years from now. It is 5 years from today and I have had the most extraordinary 5 years and this is what I am living. State in terms of who you are, what you do and what you have.
- 1 year from now. It is 1 year from today and I have had the most extraordinary year and this is what I am living. I would also consider a theme for the year. Eg A year of learning. State in terms of who you need to be, what you need to do and what you will have.
Once you have your 1 year plan then I recommend you do a 90 day wheel of life review and set specific goals for each area of your life that will move you forward. The wheel of life is divided into 10 sections to represent the various areas within your life. You can change/rename the sections so that it’s provides a meaningful representation of a balanced life for you.
With the section named, you now need to indicate your level of satisfaction within these areas. Taking the centre of the wheel as 0 and the outer edge as 10, rank your level of satisfaction with each area out of 10 by drawing a straight or curved line to create a new outer edge.
Once you have a view of what your life is like now decide which areas you wish to focus on. E.g. Being fit and healthy. Develop specific goals for these areas of your life. Write positive can do statements EG By March 2014 I will be participating in a 10km fun run.
Now you have specific goals for the next 90 days you can break these down into tasks and add to your daily/weekly plan. I use Trello as my means to track and manage my 90 day plan as I can move and change the priority of tasks as life dictates.
Hope you enjoyed reading my planning for the year ahead. Would love to hear how you went. Please post comments below.