We are all familiar with setting New Year’s Resolutions before or at the beginning of a year. Yet, how often do you complete all the goals you set for the year? How frequent are the same goals keep showing in your New Year’s Resolutions but never made (much) progress?
We always have that one or two goals that we keep procrastinating and not putting in the effort. It could be it is uncomfortable, unmotivated or you don’t have the time and all sorts of reasons.
In the book, Your Best Year Ever by Michael Hyatt, talks about a five-steps system that assist readers to achieve their best year ever. The author, Michael Hyatt is currently the CEO of leardership development firm and he also leads thousands of individuals on goal-setting through his course.
What is your LifeScore?
Michael Hyatt have mentioned about the LifeScore, which is an assessment to help invidual figure out their current position in different life domains. Before you start reading, you could try to get your LifeScore first.
5 assumptions you should know
1. Life is multifaceted.
Life is a lot more than just work, relationships or even family. The author has listed ten life domains as below:
- Spiritual
- Intellectual
- Emotional
- Physical
- Marital
- Parental
- Social
- Vocational
- Avocational
- Financial
2. Every life domain matters.
Every one of the above domains matters. In real life, all of the life domains are interrelated with each others. Any changes in one domain would affect the others as well.
As example, the financial difficulties of an individual (financial domain), likely to affect the person’s emotion (emotional domain), which could further causes negative impacts on the person’s relationships with others (Marital, Parental, Social domains).
3. Progress come after when you get clear on where you are right now.
Before making any changes, first, we need to know where are we right now.
For instance, if John aim to be debt-free in the next 5 years, the first thing he should do is being honest with himself and getting know his current financial positon. By finding out how much he owes (where are he) then only he could proceed to plan for the monthly debts payments (make progress).
4. Life domain can be improved.
Even if you feel insecure about any of your life domain, just remember, all of them could be improve by being consistence and putting in effort.
5. Confidence, happiness and satisfaction are byproducts of personal growth.
We always aim to be happier, to be satisfied or to be a confidence person, but all of these are just the byproducts. We should focus on our personal growth instead of the outcome.
The 5-steps to achieve your Best Year
Please take note that the sequence of the steps in this post is different with the book. Readers might refer back to the original book.
Step 1: Overcome the doubts
We always inspired by others about their goals or their effort of achieving their dreams. Yet, most of our dreams or goals ended before we even putting in the effort.
“If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences.”
William I. Thomas
The quote above is the Thomas Theoram, a concept by a sociologist named William I. Thomas. The concept states that the way a person perceive a fact or a situation might not be real or true, but when he believes it is real, then eventually the outcome would be affected by his belief and turns into reality.
By applying the Thomas Theoram, unless we believe that our goals are something achievable, else, we will never achieve them.
So, what to do if we have doubts on our goals?
There are two kinds of thinkings, one is limiting thinker and another is abundance thinker.
Limiting thinker thinks that the world, people or even themselves have limits. There are ceiling to every aspect. Vice versa, abudance thinker believe that there are unlimited possibilities, no matter is their own potential, about people or the world.
John Doe with limiting belief thinks that it is impossible for him to be a freelancer with a 70-hours per week full-time job. Without even trying, he accepted the fact that he would be an office worker for the following 40 years and he could finally retire and do what he wants at the age of 65.
While, Jane Doe with abudance belief, she believe that as long as she putting in efforts to build her side business on the weekend, she will ultimately the dream of traveling while freelancing.
“ Whatever you think can’t be done, somebody will come along and do it.”
Thelonious Monk
The practice of abudance thinking is the way to achieve more in life and live to the fullest. Author provided 6R to upgrade from limiting belief to abudance belief.
- Recognize the limiting belief
- Record down the limiting belief
- Review the limiting belief written down
- Reject or Reframe the belief
- Revise the rejected or reframed belief to a abudance belief
- Reorient your life with the new belief
“Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion.”
Muhammad Ali
Step 2: Complete the past
We used to think forward such as planning or progress tracking. There is another way of thinking which is backward thinking.
Backward thinking in a simple term is the review and reflection process. We analysis the past to learn more from our experience and to be more aware on the good or bad decisions we made.
The author focus on one-year term, but personally I do it daily, weekly, quarterly and yearly.
If you don’t know where to start, here’s a few questions mentioned in the book:
- Progress and status of your goals.
– If the goals are no longer something you want to pursuit, maybe you should consider reset them
- Things or achievements that you proud of.
- Dissapointment or regrets.
– For daily review and reflection, I mostly note down mistakes or things to improve.
– I would use two columns. On the left, I recorded the mistakes, disspointment and regrets.
While the right, I will list down the reasons, solutions and improvement actions.
– Find opportunity hidden in regrets.
- Things you learnt.
- Themes that keep recurring.
– For me, I mainly focus on the recurring mistakes, situations or bad habits. In order reminds me to do better.
Other than backward thinking, we shall also practicing gratitude for all the positive things happened in the past. Being grateful is a good way to amplify the great things in our life.
Step 3: Finding your why
The “Why” is the main source of your motivation. There is always a reason behind a goal. Ask yourself what are the reasons that lead you to set a goal. Understand why are you setting all the goals instead of focusing on the outcome enable us to maintain motivated throughout the process.
Personal experience as example, I want to practice lifelong learning so I set the goal of daily 15 minutes reading. Lifelong learning is the “Why”; reading is the method to achieve my “Why”.
In the book Ultralearning, the author mentioned about the intrinsic and instrumental motivations, which I found related to this step.
To be short, intrinsic motivation is pursuit one thing for the sake of that particular thing. While, instrumental motivation is pursuiting a thing in order to achieve something else.
Examples:
John learning Spanish because he always interested in Spanish. He might not have the chance to use it in daily life. This is intrinsic motivation. John is learning Spanish just to know Spanish.
While Jane is learning Spanish because she wants to get promoted to the manager position of Mexico region. Learning Spanish for Jane is an instrumental motivation. She is learning Spanish in order to get the promotion.
Do your goals come with intrinsic motivation or instrumental motivation? If it is instrumental goal, you should always do your research upfront to ensure the goal are actually helps to achieve the outcome you desire.
Step 4: Setting goals
There are two types of goals which are achievement goal and habit goal.
Achievement goal is aiming to make progress to accomplish something. Most of the time, achievement goal is the final outcome of something. Such as, running a full marathon or getting the diving license.
Habit goal is aiming to be consistence in building a habit. A habit goal is repetitive goals, like read 15 minutes everyday. The habit goal of reading refresh daily.
Author also mentioned the method SMARTER, which readers could use as guideline for goal-setting. The goals shall include all the below characteristics.
Specific
Measurable
Actionable
Risky
Time-keyed
Exciting
Relevant
Goals should always set outside of comfort zone but at the same time keep it realistic. Avoiding unrealistic goals that are bad for motivation and hard to keep.
For instance, Jane has been practicing running for the past 2 years. The goal of running a full marathon with two weeks of praticing would be a realistic goal for her. However, for John that never run before in the past 20 years, running a full marathon with two weeks of preparing probably is a goal set in delusional zone.
Step 5: Execution
The concept of law of diminishing intent by Jim Rohn stated that the longer you wait to take action, the higher the chance that you will fail to start.
The most important is to put into effort. Instead of keep worrying and over-planning all the details, you should focus on your next step.
If you have no idea where to start, it would be great to seek for help from others. Google would be your best friend too.
A few suggestion of actions:
- Break down your goals into small steps
- Utilise the power of habit to ensure consistency
- Review your progress and make changes if needed
A draft plan should be enough for you to start, unless your goal is huge like going to the space. You will eventually adjust the plan along the way.
Michael Hyatt introduced LEAP Principle for taking actions. The principle have four steps, which is:
Lean into the change with expectancy.
Engage with the concept until you achieve clarity.
Activate and do something.
Pounce and do it now.
Start to build your best year ever
No matter how much reading or research one did on goal-setting or planning, the utmost important thing is to take the first step, then the second, third, fourth and so on. Starting to take action and being consistent is the key to success.
Begin with overcome your doubts, completing your past, finding your why then setting your goals that aline with the “whys” and lastly execute accordingly.
Who shall read Your Best Year Ever?
Personally, I have read similar books previously. Most of the points stated I have read before somewhere else. This book could consider as a summary of everything I read before.
It would be great for someone which never read about goal-setting or someone that looking for complete guide on goal-setting system.