Set End of Year Goals for Personal Success in 2017

Set End of Year Goals for Personal Success in 2017

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Hi, my name is Adam Stewart, Debt Collection Expert and owner of Debt Recoveries Australia.

The end of the year is a great time to reflect on what you have accomplished over the past twelve months, and to set goals for the upcoming new year.

Goal setting is simple and doesn’t require much of your time, yet it keeps you on track by promoting self-awareness and helps to hold you accountable.

I find the end of the year is a great time for me to do a bit of navel-gazing and reflect on how it all went, what went wrong, what went right and most importantly, where I want to go in the next year.

There are a few things I like to do first, before I set my goals for the new year.

1. Celebrate your achievements

Before setting my goals for the next year, I like to reflect on the big achievements of the year.

Take some time to reflect on what you have succeeded at this past year. What were some major goals that you achieved? What were some unexpected accomplishments that you can pat yourself on the back for? It’s important to pause and to give yourself the credit you deserve, so that you can use that as motivation to keep moving forward.

2. Picture the future

Take some time for a little creative daydreaming, and fantasize about your future, both personal and professional. I like to really go for broke here. What’s your dream job? Your dream schedule? Are you a CEO? A business owner? A traveling event planner?

Now, with the ultimate goal in mind, picture some steps you can take at this point in time to put yourself closer to realizing that dream. Starting small makes that which seems impossible at first, a very real possibility! If you can dream it, you can do it.

3. BHAGs are awesome

In my previous post, I explained about BHAGS.

BHAGs (pronounced BEE-hags) are Big Hair Audacious Goals. This term was coined by James Collins and Jerry Porrasin their 1994 book, Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. BHAGs tend to be big-picture goals with a visionary aspect, such as Richard Branson’s plans for Virgin Galactic to bring space travel to the masses.

A true BHAG is clear and compelling, serves as a unifying focal point of effort, and acts as a clear catalyst for team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal; people like to shoot for finish lines.

If it’s financial goals you are setting, be audacious. For me, it’s not actually about hitting every single goal I set, it’s about the mindset it creates in setting the goals in the first place. I always set what I believe at the time are unrealistic goals. It gives me something to dream about and to aim for. I have found that most of the time, I do eventually reach these audacious goals!

4. Reset your financial blueprint

T. Harv Eker, who wrote Secrets of the Millionaire Mind, gave a talk at one of the National Achiever’s Conference I went to a few years back. The most important take-away for me was that you need to “change the blueprint of how much you want to earn”.

He talks about the personal limitations we have already unconsciously set in our minds, about how much money we think we can earn or how much revenue or profits our companies can generate.

Eker urges you to reset your financial blueprint. At the time (it was 2011), I changed my personal financial blueprint and multiplied it by 5. Today, I can tell you that I am half way there.

NOW: Set 3 goals for the upcoming year

Come up with just three things that you would like to accomplish within the next twelve months. I find any more than three things is just to over-whelming for me. Moreover, I find that in reality, I just won’t get around to them if there are more than 3 things. If you can handle more, go for more. I like to keep things simple.

Be sure that they are SMART goals: Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. The November 1981 issue of Management Review contained a paper by George T. Doran called There’s a S.M.A.R.T. way to write management’s goals and objectives.

Next, write them down. I like to place my goals somewhere I will see them daily, like hanging on my bathroom mirror or as the background on my phone, so that I have a constant reminder of what I am working towards.

Action Equals Rewards

After you have set all your goals, don’t forget to put them into action. “Action equals Rewards”. This is one of the 10 business commandments I learnt from Wilson Luna, during one of his talks and you can probably read about it in his book, Entrepreneurial Leadership. He talks about taking massive, immediate action.

There is no point in setting the goals if you are not going to start acting so get going as soon as you have finished setting them. I like to set action items for each goal and put reminders about each action in my calendar, so they will get done.

How about you? What do you look forward to next year?

 

Debt Recoveries Australia is the expert at recovering your outstanding debts without the drama. For more information, email us at email@debtrecoveries.com.au or call 1300 799 511. Tell us your problems on Skype at “debtrecoveries”.

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