How are you approaching your goals for 2020? With some careful planning and consideration of some key factors, you can get off to a great start in the new year! There are some ways to approach setting your goals for 2020 that can have a big impact so you can achieve your most important goals. 

When creating your plan for 2020, think about your purpose...this is your “why.” It is natural to think about the actions, the actual things you want to do - whether those are personal or physical. It is more important to focus on the purpose. “We are human beings and not just human doings.” Always start with a focus on why you are doing things and not just what they are or how you are going to accomplish them. For example, relationships are so important. Think about the people in your life and the top ten people with whom you want to have relationships. These could be family members, friends or people at work. Consider ways to build those relationships. Also, consider doing things that are bigger than yourself as you work toward some greater purposes. Again, don’t just focus on actions, but think about those bigger reasons for what you’re doing as you try to capture your goals. 

When you consider the bigger “why” in working to achieve your goals, you need to look at various key elements that help you with your process. For success, you need a positive amount of energy to put into your efforts. This includes physical, emotional, mental and spiritual energy. Energy is the key to performance. For many things, you need so much more than just physical energy. Also, especially in business, we often focus on performing and neglect to consider taking time to recover. There is a certain rhythm to successfully achieving goals that includes time to perform but also time to recover. You might also look at your routines.  These small habits we do on a daily basis impact our ability to reach our goals. What routines do you have that might be interfering with your success? Small changes in these things can have a big impact on your future.

When we think about a plan for reaching our goals in 2020, it is important to focus on writing those goals down. One method is to have a mind sweep in which you sit down and write out everything that comes to mind. Try this in twenty-minute sessions over several days, and write down all the things you think you should try to accomplish in 2020. You may end up crossing many of them off the list, and that is fine. Just write it all down. By writing everything down, you begin to move from transactional activities that may occupy your mind each day and into the transformational types of things that would serve your big goals in 2020. 

You can have a powerful start to 2020 with some deliberate planning now. Take some time to consider your why, create your goals, and capture the essence of what you want to accomplish in 2020. You can make great things happen! Just remember that sometimes the best way to accomplish big goals is with little steps! Good luck with your planning!