It’s the time of year when lots of folks are writing their annual goals. It can feel daunting. Too often this becomes an exercise in list-writing, task after task that we know we must get through.
Somehow, in the process of listing out everything we lose something: the meaning behind it all, the “so what.”
If I boil this exercise down to its essence, my thought experiment is: imagine it is December 31, 2021 and I’m looking back at the year. How will I (and, if these goals are for work, my boss) know how I did?
Here’s how you can bring clarity to the answer to this question.
Take a step back and write two short paragraphs.
- Paragraph 1: if I’ve done this by the end of the year it will be a good year
- Paragraph 2: if I’ve done this it will be a great year
Write in simple prose and focus on the stuff that really matters. Not each individual task, but where you will be and how it will feel. Most important, write paragraphs that are specific and clear enough that you, and the colleagues that will be looking at this with you in a year’s time, will be able to judge clearly how you did.
For example, when I think about 2021 for 60 Decibels, we obviously have goals around growth, revenues, profitability and impact. But those numbers alone aren’t my goals for the year. Rather, I’ve written down where I want us to be as a business and as a team, what questions we will have answered for ourselves and in the market, and the strategic milestones we will have hit that set us up for the next success.
What I write down doesn’t feel like a list of accomplishments, it’s more like a description of a location on a map: at this new (future) vantage point, thinks look and feel like this, they smell like this. Here’s who I am, and who we are, thanks to the miles we’ve walked. Here’s what we can now see thanks to how high we’ve climbed.
When I capture my goals for the year in these terms, everything feels more tangible, more visceral, and more motivating. Better yet, it’s easier for our team to understand where we’re headed and why, so we can all get behind that vision.
If it’s a good year, this is where we’ll be.
And if it’s a great year, this is where we’ll be.
Here’s to a great 2021.
As always, you sparked my imagination about writing better annual goals. I like this approach. Do you have examples you can share, so we can “see” what this approach looks like in real life?