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What's in a Goal?

Author

Linda Hung
June 10, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

Monday Me’s

What is in a goal?

Gurus talk about creating goals and how they can add value to your lives, but no one teaches you how to develop a proper goal. Today I’m teaching you my Goal Cycle framework to help you stay motivated and dedicated towards your goals.

Today’s Topics:

  • Winners and Losers

  • Create Your Goals Cycle

  • Question for you

Winners and Losers

Winners and losers have the same goals.

James Clear

In a track and field race, both winners and losers have the same goal: to pass the finish line and beat the others. The main differentiation between the winner vs the loser is practice, mindset, and resiliency. The “loser” can transform into a winner through practice, mindset, and resiliency by winning a future race.

In the career world, a successful entrepreneur differs from an unsuccessful one similarly through hard work (practice), mindset, and resiliency.

The true winners wouldn’t let a temporary loss define their success, they keep pushing until they achieve their wins.

Reflect: What aspects of your life have you given up too early before you won?

Create Your Goals Cycle

The Goals Cycle

Creating goals is only the first step in achieving what you want to do. What makes a goal useful is being able to work and take action to move towards that goal consistently.

I’ve created a 5-step Goal Cycle to help you stay motivated and dedicated towards your goals!

Goal Cycle:

1. Set Personal, Controllable Goals

  • Identify What Will Make You Proud: Think about what would make you proud in 6 months. Any time frame works, but 6 months is easier to work with. Make your goals are personally meaningful and not based on societal expectations.

  • Define the Why: Why do you want to achieve this goal? How will it bring joy or pride to your life? A strong "why" will provide motivation and purpose, helping you endure any “how.”

  • Question: "What specific goal, if achieved in the next six months, would make me feel proud, and why is this goal important to me personally?"

2. Shift Your Mindset

  • Document Your Journey: Keep track of small achievements and checkpoints. Documenting progress helps you see growth over time and keeps you motivated even when progress feels slow.

  • Adjust Expectations: Manage your expectations by focusing on inputs rather than outcomes. This reduces disappointment and helps build resilience.

  • Question: "What are the key tasks and actions I need to take this week to move closer to my goal, and how will I stay disciplined in completing them?"

3. Plan and Take Action

  • Commander’s Intent Framework: Define your monthly and weekly purpose, describe the end state if the purpose is achieved, and list the key tasks needed to reach that end state.

  • Maintain Discipline: Stay focused on meeting key tasks and identify the main levers that will drive you forward.

  • Focus on Controllable Factors: Set tasks based on what you can control or input directly

  • Question: "What small achievements or progress have I documented recently, and how do they reflect my growth and journey towards my goal?"

4. Build Resilience Through Reflection

  • Regularly Reflect on Progress: Weekly, monthly, and quarterly reflections help you assess your progress. Review your daily wins and summarize your achievements.

  • Learn from Challenges: Identify challenges faced, analyze your approach, and decide how you can improve. Use these insights to iterate and refine your methods.

  • Question: "What challenges have I faced this week, how did I approach them, and what can I learn from these experiences to improve my methods going forward?"

5. Align Actions with Long-Term Goals

  • Regularly Reassess Goals: During quarterly reviews, ask if your long-term goals still resonate with you. Adjust them if necessary to ensure they align with your current aspirations.

  • Ensure Alignment: Continuously check if your daily and weekly actions are aligned with your long-term goals. Make adjustments as needed to stay on track.

  • Question: "Do my current actions align with my long-term goals, and do these goals still resonate with my personal aspirations and values?"

Reply back to the email and let me know how it went.

Question for you to journal

What are three small achievements or progress points you've made recently towards your goal? How do these reflect your growth?

Sometimes we forget about where we started and how far we have come, so taking time to write down the small achievements can bring a fuller picture to where you are now vs where you were before.

Comment below with what you have learned with this exercise!

In Case You Missed it…

On last Monday Me, we talked about how to detect the “wrong” people in your life. Common patterns that “wrong” people exude include:

  1. Disrespectful of Boundaries

  2. Energy Drainers

  3. Critical and Discouraging

  4. Unreliable and Untrustworthy

  5. Self-Serving and Disrespectful

  6. Negatives Influences

Read more about it here! Read all of the Monday Me’s to get actionable advice on how to improve your relationship with yourself and all of the Wednesday We’s to understand how to improve relationships with others!

That’s all for this Monday Me. Reply to this e-mail any findings you have and let me know what topics you would like me to explore!

In the meantime, Stay Smiling 😊

Linda

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