Setting Winter Goals

Setting Winter Goals

As we head into the new year and start making our New Year resolutions think about breaking up goals into season instead of setting yearly goals. 

Autumn– Sep / Oct / Nov

Winter– Dec / Jan / Feb

Spring– Mar / Apr / May

Summer– June / Jul / Aug

Having 2-3 months in each block of time (around 100 days) where you can set goals means that you can really focus on the season you're in – and plan a realistic amount of work/goals for this time.

It’s also a lot easier to look ahead at the next 8-12 weeks, whereas planning for a whole year can seem really daunting – not to mention that things may drastically change over the course of the year and plans would have to be altered accordingly.

Steps to help you achieve your goals:

Step 1 – Start by writing down all the things you would like to achieve this year. Really brainstorm it – and think of all aspects of life (you don’t want to focus on one area as this may make the others suffer – for example wanting to get fit is fantastic, but if you then spend every day in the gym you may not be able to spend as much time with your family, or on work, or on other hobbies etc….). I wrote a post a while back on living a balanced life which you may want to take a look at as it makes you think about each of the 5 main areas you have.

Step 2 – Work out a rough timeline of when you want to get each thing done by – and start to split them up into the right season. For example – because Spring and Autumn are the 2 seasons where there are less holidays and down time, I like to plan my bigger work projects at these times, and then tackle some smaller things in Winter and Summer. You need to work with the times that suit you best as you are much more likely to stick with the plan if you do it like this.

Step 3 – Now you should have a rough overview of the year – but the beauty of this way of doing things is that now you know that everything should be tackled in whichever season you have allocated it to, you can just concentrate on the season you are now in – which for now is Winter.

Step 4 – Take each goal – or one goal if you only have one – and split it up into chunks of work. For example – if you want to redecorate a room then give yourself the end date of Feb 29th (leap year!) and work backwards from there. That way you can have a deadline, and steps to get there. This automatically does two things – gives the project/goal some impetus and gets you motivated, and also shows whether the deadline is possible. It sets expectations, and stops overwhelm as you can spot any timing issues right at the start.

Step 5 – Schedule these smaller tasks into your diary – just like any other appointments. Only when you do this will you actually get things done. Don’t just leave it on your TO DO list…