According to the University of Scranton, 92% of us do not achieve our goals yearly. A DHM Research survey in Portland finds that two-thirds of Americans do not have a plan or goals. Part of the challenge is feeling overwhelmed. There is so much coming at us that we want to achieve personally and professionally that if we set goals, we do not know how to track them and drive them to completion.
To be part of the 8% who achieve our goals each year, we need to develop a time investment plan, review our goals regularly, and get comfortable with small failures. Let’s explore what this means.
Develop a time investment plan
There are 8,760 hours in a year. We need to spend this time wisely if we are going to achieve our goals. As Stephen R. Covey said, “If the big rocks don’t go in first, they aren’t going to fit in later.” This means we need to develop a general plan of where our time will go in our life, then get specific each quarter, month, week, and day. How might we think about these 8,760 hours?
Description | Time Estimate | Remaining Time |
Hours we start with each year | | 8,760 |
Working | 2,080 | 7,680 |
Commuting - if this is a thing for you as it is for me | 250 | 7,430 |
Sleeping, showering, all that personal stuff | 3,204 | 4,226 |
Meals, cooking, cleaning afterward | 913 | 3,313 |
Exercise | 195 | 3,118 |
Faith, Family Time, Volunteering, Personal Time, Hobbies, Friends, What else? | | |
Do you see where I am going with this? There is just only so much time in our year.
People can go overboard with this. The balance is placing the “big rocks,” not scheduling every minute.
The result of this exercise is often finding:
Weeks and months where the schedule is overbooked. This leads to a feeling of overwhelm and “not enough time.”
A realization that large numbers of time pockets are randomly used and not intentionally invested. For example, when a meeting cancels, we dive into email instead of having our most important things (MITs) at hand, ready to work on at any moment.
It takes practice and tracking to see how you actually are using your time compared to your plan can be a little painful. It is helpful to break your time into blocks that are important to you and be intentional about where you want to invest your time in the coming months.
Review goals regularly
Most of us are familiar with SMART goals. I like Michael Hyatt’s version, which is SMARTER goals. However you set your annual goals, it is proven that people who do the following are more likely to achieve their goals:
The One Thing - Focus on the one thing for the goal that will move you forward and do that thing. Having an entire, detailed plan of how you will achieve the goal is not necessary and can be paralyzing.
Review daily - Big things and changes do not happen through wishful thinking. We must read, review, and recommit to our goals daily.
One to Three Goals a Quarter - We are incredibly busy people (back to your time investment plan). I know we want to achieve ten things every few months, but that is not humanly possible. Narrow your focus, get specific and go hard.
High achievers do many more things such as morning routines, eating well, exercising, and the like. Reviewing goals daily has kept me focused and moving forward when I would have otherwise launched new projects and tried new things before achieving the goals already set.
Get comfortable with small failures
I admit; I still struggle with this one. If we stay focused on our MITs, including our goals, things are going to slip through the cracks. These are things that did not make it onto the schedule, things to which we must say no so we can say yes to our MIT's.
How do we get comfortable with these small failures and not slip back into our old habits of saying yes to everything or feeling guilty?
"Most people tend to feel guilty even if they haven’t done anything wrong when they have extra-high expectations of themselves," says Thea Gallagher, PsyD. There is a great deal of research around guilt and how “not to sweat the small stuff”. Most of it we know. Practicing it is a challenge. It includes:
Acknowledging it's probably not about me - Rarely are people thinking about anyone but themselves and their situation. If something has happened, the other person is probably thinking about the impact on them, not me. I strive to respond with this in mind.
Where is the guilt coming from - Did I not do something I said I would do? Is this some sort of weird, social, or role expectation I have set for myself? Is this coming from a place of wanting to be perfect? When I feel the guilt, I dig around and see where it is coming from. Finding the source helps me name it.
Gratitude - I know…this one can sound a little soft for us left-brain, analytical types. I am telling you, it works. There is someone every day for whom I am grateful (beyond my amazing and loving husband; he is on the gratitude list every day.). Expressing my gratitude helps me deal with the guilt. I still do not understand how it works. I just know it does.
There are many ways to address handling small failures. High achievers, those who regularly set and achieve goals, do need to address it. We need to say no to things. We will forget small things because we are focusing on the big. We will also fail to say no to things, and people will take it as a yes. I am sure I have at least three to five “small failures” a week. I use the skills above to accept them, learn from them, and power on.
Your Challenge - Time Investment Plan
As usual, I have a challenge for you in the coming week. Carve out two 30-minute blocks and work on your time investment plan. This takes a little brain power, so time block it during your most productive time. Once you have your plan, start tracking for the next month in 30-minute increments. See if you spend your time where you want it to go.
After the first 30-days, I find people are usually surprised at the misalignment in at least one area. We do this at work as well when people want to spend a certain percentage of their time on projects versus leadership, management, and administrative tasks.
I know keeping records like this is not fun. At the same time, there are only 8,760 hours in a year. We cannot “time manage” our way into incredible goals. We first need to understand the investments we want to make and be willing to say no to things not aligned with those goals.
Let me hear about your time investment plan, how this is working for you, and if I can help in any way.