You can accomplish big things next year. But how do you choose?
Smart goal-setting is all about focus. You cannot do everything. If you want to succeed, you need to take on a level of challenge that you can realistically accomplish. Yes, you will stretch your time and your abilities, but you won’t burn yourself out.
This is Part 3 of our yearly planning guide. If you haven’t yet completed Parts 1 and 2, you’ll want to go back and complete those worksheets so that you are fully prepared to take on your 2019 goal-setting and planning.
Here is a link to Part 1: Lessons Learned in 2018 and Part 2: Thinking Big in 2019.
Now you are ready to start looking ahead into 2019. Here is your yearly planning worksheet for this week (it’s a big one – you’re going to love it!):
Part 3: Identifying Your Focus for 2019 & Setting Your 2019 Theme
Identifying Your Focus Areas
Sometimes the biggest opportunities for growth aren’t the ones with think of first. Using the first page of the worksheet, spend time thinking about opportunities you have for growth or improvement in three areas:
- personal
- professional
- social
What is going well? Where could things be better? You might surprise yourself with what really matters to you when you start thinking about it. Let this guide how you set your goals for next year.
Bringing 2019 Into Focus
In last week’s worksheet, you looked at your life in the big picture. What is your legacy? Who do you want to be?
This week, take those big ideas and apply them to what matters most to you in your life right now. Let’s say that one of your big picture goals is to own your own business one day. Looking at your life today, you might realize that while there are a lot of entrepreneurs you admire, you don’t know many personally. So you might decide that one of your goals for 2019 is to grow your network, with a focus on meeting other entrepreneurs.
Big picture, meet small picture. This is where the magic happens.
This is also a good opportunity to think about what is *not* working for you right now in your life. Are there things you want to leave behind in 2018?
This could be related to your goal (if you have a small network because you’ve avoided big events like conferences out of fear, you might decide to leave fear or shyness behind). Or it could just be something you’re spending time on that is not bringing value to your life in general.
In order to grow, you have to shed things that are holding you back. Don’t be afraid to let go of things that aren’t working, in order to make space for things that will help you move ahead.
2019 Yearly Theme
This is one of our very favorite things to do every year. Not only is it thought-provoking and inspiring, but it has the potential to make next year truly amazing.
Setting a yearly theme is like setting an intention for all of 2019. It can inform every single decision that you make all year long. It brings things into focus. You can easily ask: does this align with my yearly theme, or not?
A yearly theme can be a word, a phrase, a quote, or an idea. Here are some yearly themes that we have heard throughout the years that just might get your creative juices flowing:
- Balance
- Take your time
- Savor
- Shine
- Get it done
- Say yes
- Radiance
Even though your theme might only be 1-2 words long, it can actually take a bit of time to find exactly the right words you want to guide you in 2019.
Plan to set your yearly theme over a couple of days. Start out by brainstorming — write whatever comes to mind. Think about the things you want to do, the impact you want to have on people around you, and the kind of person you aspire to be. What are your strengths? How do you want to grow?
Some words might start to pop out as more meaningful than others. They might show up more often, or you might just get a feeling in your gut that they are right.
If a clear theme doesn’t pop out to you right away, that’s okay. Leave your brainstorming overnight and revisit it the next day. Does anything stand out to you now with fresh eyes?
Keep thinking about your theme as long as you need to. It’s okay for it to take some time — it’s a big decision, and that’s why we are starting now with a couple weeks left in 2018!
When you decide on a theme that feels right for 2019, write it down. Put it in your 2019 Ink+Volt Planner, and anywhere else that you think it can inspire you (like a post-it on your bathroom mirror or on a card you leave on your desk).
Then join us next week as we turn ideas into action in Part 4 of your 2019 Yearly Planning Series.
