Making It Happen

The holiday season is here.  Organizationally, it is strategic planning time, budgets are being finalized and most of us are buckling down to finish out the year with a bang.  Personally, most are making gift lists and thinking about their New Years resolutions.

 

Last year for Christmas, my husband got me a book called Living Your Best Year Ever, which is filled with goal-setting activities and personal and professional challenges.  I’d had a tough year, and was honestly wishing it was a pair of earrings instead because that was easier than facing the realities of wanting to change several big things in my life.  But I knew I needed to change things if I wanted things to change, so I dug into the book.

While at first I was overwhelmed with its intensity, the (seemingly simple, yet hard to make habitual) act of writing down my goals and following the plan of daily activities directly tied to my goals was a powerful and enlightening experience. 

For the three big goals I had for myself this year, the book had me focused every day on the things I could do to get me to my goals.  Surprisingly, my most difficult goal was met first…by March 6. 

 

“Living a more balanced life” – well, I’m still working on that, but, with a great support network around me and those I have shared my goals with who keep me accountable, I am markedly closer than I was in January.

 

We all have big goals for ourselves, and many people succeed in great feats like losing 100 pounds, finding their dream job, or starting their own business.  The one thing these people have in common is that they calibrate their daily lives around these goals.  They figure out what they can do on a daily basis that would get them closest to their goal, measure their progress daily, set weekly goals, and do monthly reviews of what works and what doesn’t.

Reaching big goals, personal or professional, whether it is to achieve a new feat in loan growth or to write a novel, is a daily execution of smaller tasks and measurement.  And you can’t do it alone.  If it is organizational, involve your staff in the goal setting and measurement.  Make measuring your progress a team activity.  Put up one of those thermometer pages and draw it in each time you get closer to that goal.  The more people in your organization who you involve in this process, the more successful you will be.

If it is a personal goal, tell someone close to you what your plans are and share your progress with him/her along the way.  You’ll always push yourself harder if you know you have someone holding you accountable on a regular basis.  But most important in this process is stopping to assess your progress along the way in order to make improvements and celebrate successes.

Reaching goals requires continued awareness and a lifestyle of commitment to the growth and improvement you want in all areas of life.  It is a journey, and not a destination.  Here’s to a great ending to 2013, and an upcoming year of bests.