Welcome to January 1st, 2015, the starting gate of yet another year. How did you finish off 2014 – did you achieve all of your goals and objectives you set for yourself, or was there a number of areas where you just didn’t fire in 2014? Did you set New Years resolutions at the start of 2014 only to find that by the end of January, they were yet again a distant memory? Have you repeated the pattern this year, having resolved to achieve great things in 2015, and know that it really is a pipe dream? Well now is the time to break the pattern, to really sit down and look at all areas of your life, business and career, and put in place some disciplines to ensure that you maximise your opportunity to make 2015 your most extraordinary year yet. And understand one thing – it is going to take work, it is going to take discipline, and you will be challenged! And I don’t know about you, but I would not want it any other way!
So how are you going to go about creating our most extraordinary year yet? Following is a set of guidelines and principles that my mentor, Alice Haemmerle shared with me in December, and it provides an exceptional framework to focus on various areas of life and become laser focussed on what we want to create, and how we are going to go about it.
1.Review of 2014
Firstly, it is critical to reflect on the year just gone, and review what went well. What were the highlights for you in 2014, what were your grateful for, what made you happy and satisfied – use these 8 categories to reflect on and identify the highlights for you :
– Relationships
– Health & fitness
– Business/Career
– Contribution
– Holidays
– Special Events
– New Experiences
– Learnings/Education
In each of the above areas, spend some quality time reflecting and reviewing what were the highlights in 2014. You may well find that these highlights will become the launching pad for your objectives for 2015, so ensure that you take the time you need. And when doing this, it is important to focus on the highlights, so bring an attitude of gratitude to the exercise. If you find yourself drifting into focussing on all the things you wanted to achieve and didn’t, or that you find that you are comparing yourself to others’ achievements, stop immediately and re-focus on identifying highlights for you. All of us are on our own Hero’s Journey, and we are likely to be at different stages in that journey, so be grateful with where you are, and use it as a springboard to move forward.
2.Assessment – Wheel of Life
Having reflected on and reviewed the highlights for 2014, now look at assessing your level of satisfaction in the following 8 categories ;
– Relationships
– Health
– Career/Business
– Wealth/Finance
– Contribution
– Hobbies
– Family
– Spirituality
Utilising the Wheel of Life is a great exercise as it will provide you with a very clear picture on where you may need to increase your focus in 2015, in order to create the most extraordinary year. For each category, assess your level of satisfaction out of 10 (0 being totally dissatisfied, and 10 being totally satisfied) and mark a spot on the wheel. Then draw a line between each score clockwise to reveal the shape of your wheel – this will provide you with a pictorial view of your current Wheel of Life.
3. 2015 Goals and Objectives
Having assessed your level of satisfaction in the 8 categories, it is now time to focus on the year ahead, and what you would like to achieve during 2015, knowing that when you achieve them, it would make 2015 your most extraordinary year. Really spend the time you need to get crystal clear on your ideal outcomes, and ensure that the goals you set have 2 key elements – 1) the goal excites & inspires you, and 2) it scares the living daylights out of you as you currently have no idea on how you will achieve it. This is critical as it is too easy to set goals that you know you can achieve, and that don’t require much of a stretch – setting goals which scare you actually starts creating an environment where you will grow, develop and move through further stages of the Hero’s Journey. Here are the categories to create your goals and objectives in :
– Relationships
– Health
– Career/Business
– Wealth/Finance
– Contribution
– Hobbies
– Spirituality
In writing your goals and objectives, imagine yourself sitting down on December 31st, 2015 looking back at the year that is about to end, and write the goal out in the first tense as having already achieved it. Utilise the SMART format and ensure that you encapsulate emotion attached to the goal – emotion attached to a goal creates motion to commence going after the goal. For example, in the area of career/business, the goal could be “It is on or before December 31st, 2015, and I am so happy and grateful now that I have been awarded the Number 1 sales person in the company, having achieved 253% of my Annual Sales Target – I feel humble and energised…….”
Write out you goals in this format for each of the 7 categories.
4. The Rule of 5
Now that you have completed writing your empowering goals and objectives for 2015, the next step is to identify and implement The Rule of 5 – the Rule of 5 comes from John Maxwell and it is the identification and implementation of the 5 core activities/principles that must be carried out on a daily basis to underpin the achievement of the goal or objective. For example, John has a Rule of 5 that he undertakes daily in his business ; 1. Read, 2. File, 3. Think, 4. Ask Questions, & 5. Write. He does this daily, 365 days every year, as he knows that success is determined by your daily agenda. What will your Rule of 5 be for each of the 7 categories? Determine what they will be and ensure that you commit to carrying them out each and every day.
5. Quarter 1 Focus
It is nearly time for the rubber to hit the road, and to make it ‘easier’ to start creating momentum towards achieving your goals, break the year into 4 quarters, and focus your attention on what you need to achieve in Quarter 1 in order to set yourself up for achieving your annual goals. For each of the 7 categories, work through what you would like to achieve in the first 90 days of 2015, what your Rule of 5 will be for each category and what you will reward yourself with at the end of March for achieving your Quarter 1 objectives. Reward for achievement is critical to you maintaining momentum into Quarter 2. And for each Quarter in 2015, repeat.
You are now ready to implement, to build the momentum, and to progress through the further stages of the Hero’s Journey. Ensure that you maintain focus, have someone close to you who can be your sounding board or act as your accountability buddy, to help you stay on track. Know that you will need to work hard, that you will be presented with challenges and obstacles, that you will be tested along the journey. To achieve extraordinary results, you may need to make sacrifices and do things that other people are not prepared to do. It may not be easy to make 2015 your most extraordinary year, but I am totally convinced of one thing – it will be well worth it!!
Here’s to 2015 being your most extraordinary year!
Darren
Thank you for taking the time to read this post – I greatly appreciate it, and welcome comments and feedback. Please feel free to comment below, to follow me on LinkedIn, or to connect via Twitter or Facebook.
About : Darren is an Executive Coach, Leadership Consultant, Trainer, Facilitator, Speaker. A passionate and driven individual specialising in personal development, strategic planning, coaching for advocacy & enhanced performance, situational and servant based leadership, executive coaching of people leaders, emerging leaders and ‘high potential’ individual contributors within the Enterprise & Government market, personal change management, and strategic workshop facilitation & training.
