The Goal System That Keeps Me From Drifting
One of the most important things in living a more mindful life is figuring out what you need to do, what you should do, and what you can just leave. It sounds really easy, but it’s much harder than you’d think. It has been for me, at least. I’ve struggled with doing things out of habit instead of doing things based on my goals and the things I want to achieve. What this basically means is that I keep doing the thing I did yesterday, even though it won’t get me any closer to my goals — just because it’s a habit. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been such a big fan of the bullet journal method: it forces me to think about the things I do. It forces me to reflect, which is something I need more of in my life. For context, I struggle with the world feeling a little too fast-paced at times, which affects not just my planning and productivity, but my life in general. That’s also one of the reasons I decided to write this post, because I think this way of planning I’ve ended up doing is a great way to help combat the issue of the world just being too fast.
How Goal Planners Changed the Way I Plan
The thing that made me start thinking more and caring more about doing the right things was goal planners. Goal planners are a different type of productivity app. They want you to plan out your goals and work backwards from there. The apps themselves are great, and there are a couple of them. The one I used for a while was an app called Griply, and the reason I got into it was that I’m an affiliate and I need to properly test out products before I can share my opinions on them. When testing Griply, not only did I think the product was good, but it also started a habit for me. I started planning differently. I started planning with my yearly goals in mind. To do that, you actually need to spend a bit of time breaking your goals down. Sarah Hart-Unger from The Best Laid Plans podcast calls this “nested goals” in her book (I haven’t finished the book yet), but the nested goal idea is basically the same as my way of planning.
From Yearly Goals to Monthly Goals
What I do at the start of the year is decide on my main goals. I then break my goals into quarterly goals and monthly goals, but I don’t set weekly or daily goals — at least not at the start of the year, when I’m doing my planning. What I’ve learned is that quarterly and monthly goals, once they reach the weekly and daily level, tend to become tasks instead. So I do task planning with my goals in mind at the weekly and daily level. I have a few planning rituals that make this work. This is a system that fits me, my way of working, and my current life situation. It’s worth mentioning that the way I do this might change as my life situation changes, but currently the rituals look like this:
The Yearly Reflection Ritual
My first and biggest ritual is the yearly one. I spend a lot of time towards the end of the year reflecting on the year. Since I’m fairly consistent with my journaling, I can go through my journals and see my thoughts throughout the year: the good, the bad, and everything I’ve achieved. It’s so easy to be biased towards the end of the year, and as someone who struggles with his mental health during the winter, it’s so easy to think the whole year was bad. So my ritual of spending a good chunk of time reflecting on the year isn’t just helpful for the planning part, but for my general mental health too.
Setting Goals That Are Hard, But Not Impossible
Once I’ve reflected on the year, it’s time to set goals for the year ahead. My goals are often clear, since I know what my biggest dream is and I’m trying to work towards that. What I need to work on, though, is setting good goals. Sometimes I set goals that are too hard to achieve, and six months into the year, once I can clearly see the goal is hopeless, I start to give up. I’m not really good at resetting mid-year. Other times it’s the opposite: my goal is too easy, so I achieve it in a couple of months and then have nothing left to work towards. So when I’m setting goals, I try to find the right balance: something that’s hard to achieve but still possible. That’s what I spend most of my time on at the yearly stage.
Breaking It Down: Quarterly and Monthly
Once the goal is set, it’s time to break it down. When setting numeric goals, I try to set a goal based on an average. For example, I need to read an average of a book a month, which makes it much easier not to give up if I miss a month or two when things get hectic or life isn’t going the way I want. I’m still able to pull back and achieve the goals I’ve set for myself. I break these goals down to the quarterly level. To use the book goal as an example, a book a month on average means I should read 4 books each quarter, and I can then break that down again to the monthly level, which means I need to read one book a month.
Where Goals Become Daily Tasks
When it gets to the weekly and daily level, things actually change for me. Instead of high-level planning and goal-setting, my goals suddenly become tasks. To continue with the book example: this means going from reading one book a month, to reading 3 hours a week, to reading 25 minutes a day. It’s at this level that your goals can become something you can actually achieve. A big goal of reading 12 books a year might sound really daunting, but reading 25 minutes a day is something you can look at and think, “this is something I’ll probably be able to achieve.” The goal is still at the centre of my planning, but it’s gone from a high-level goal to a daily task.
Keeping the Goal at the Centre
This type of planning isn’t special, and it isn’t even my idea. But I’m a big believer in it, because it helps keep my goals central. At the start of the year, I decide what my goal is going to be, and no amount of outside noise from the world can change that. This system helps remind me of that. It takes time, but it’s worth it for me. The goal is to figure out what you want, make that a priority, and build a system to help you keep it a priority through the year. That’s what I want this system to be.