Maybe the past year dished out more than you could handle. Or perhaps life hasn’t slowed down enough for you to thoughtfully consider your goals. It could even be that goal setting just isn’t your thing—and that’s okay.
In this podcast mini-series, Holly and I shared a Purposeful Goal Setting process that isn’t really about creating perfect goals at all. It is about choosing to live with intention. And for leaders, intentionality matters. In this mini-series, we walk through a simple four-step framework designed to help you move forward with clarity and purpose: Reflection, Dreaming, Goal Setting, and Creating an Action Plan.
Step 1: Reflection
Is it really necessary to reflect before setting your goals for the year or the next season or phase of your life? Why does it matter, and does it impact whether your goals are effective?
John Dewey says: “We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.” And while you can go straight to goal setting, I have found immense value in first reflecting on the past before creating goals for the future.
In this episode, I’ll share with you why reflection is important, what you should reflect on, and how to do it. Plus I’ll give you some of my favorite resources for reflecting.
Tools and resources for reflecting:
- Episode 128: Processing 2020
- Episode 130: Processing Your Circumstances
- Episode 131: Processing Your Relationships
- Episode 24: What You Should Do Before the New Year Begins
- PowerSheets
- My favorite pens
- Big Post-Its
- FREE Processing & Reflection Guide
Step 2: Dreaming
After reflection, are you excited and ready to jump into setting your goals for the next year or season? Before you do, there’s one more thing you need to do: take time for dreaming and casting a vision.
In this episode of our mini-series, Holly will walk you through what it looks like to dream and create a vision for your year. This is a chance to allow God to inspire you and lead you into something different or better than you could come up with on your own.
Tools and resources for dreaming:
- Episode 26 of the Christian Woman Leadership Podcast – The Importance of Dreaming
- PowerSheets
- Bucket List Tutorial from Polly Payne
Step 3: Set Your Goals
If you’ve done the first 2 steps of reflection and dreaming, you’re ready to start setting some goals. But how? What if you’re not sure where to start?
In this episode, I’ll walk you through some key principles of goal setting and some helpful tips that have worked for me. We’ll also look at the differences between project goals and habit goals so you can determine which type of goals make sense for you.
Finally, I’ll share with you the PEACE Goal Framework that my friend Christa Hutchins originally shared with us on Episode 181. And we’ll talk about what to do next!
Tools & resources for goal setting:
- Episode 28: Three Approaches to Goal Setting
- Episode 30: How Your Personality Affects Your Goal Setting
- Episode 181: Peace Goals
- PowerSheets
- Blank Pads of Paper
Step 4: Create an Action Plan
Have you ever set goals and then a few weeks later completely abandoned them? Or perhaps you even forgot what goals you were supposed to be working on?
You’re not alone. And the reason so many goals are abandoned is because we forget to create a plan for how we’re actually going to accomplish them.
In this final episode in our Purposeful Goal Setting Mini-Series, Holly’s going to talk you through creating an action plan for your goals. She’s giving you real-life examples and some helpfup tips and tricks to make sure your goals don’t just become something collecting dust in the back of your closet.
Tools and resources for creating an action plan:
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Books (affiliate links)
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Calendar – iCal, Google Calendar, paper planner, goal sheets
