Episode 86 – 2021 Success Map Series | Goal Setting

Across this 5-part podcast series, I chat with co-facilitator of Leaders Who Give A Damn, Becky Hammond from Isogo Strong on how to create your success map to learn from 2020 and set your sights for success in 2021. We cover topics such as growth mindset, reflection, goal setting, actions, accountability & partnerships, and word for the year.

In this episode, we dive deep into goal setting and walk you through the Success Map 2021 workbook on this.

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Transcript

Becky Hammond  00:16

Hello, Murray, welcome back to chatting about success in 2021.

Murray Guest  00:22

Welcome to this conversation on goal clarity. This is our third conversation in the series. Becky, I am looking forward to it. I think goals are something that I’m getting better at doing. And this process has definitely helped me and I’m looking forward to stepping through it with you in this conversation.

Becky Hammond  00:44

Yeah, me too. You know, now we’ve reflected on the ups and downs. So we’ve established why is it important that we reflect? Because this growth mindset is so important. And then what are some practical ways that we can do that. So if you’re using the Success Map 2021, from Leaders Who Give A Damn, you can walk right along with us throughout these conversations. We will just serve as your virtual coaches of asking the questions that we would ask if we were to sit down with leaders, person to person, and going through this. So if you don’t have that yet, you can find it at leaderswhogiveadamn.com/successmap2021.  So today we’re talking about goal clarity. And so we are moving into page three of the Success Map and on there, you’re gonna see there are four different boxes there that give you some general categories that you might consider as you’re thinking about setting your goals. We were chatting just before this about how it is important to establish why goal setting is important. It kind of feels like a little bit more of a given these days. But there’s some really great research around around the why. And so remind us, why do we know that goal setting is important?

Murray Guest  02:16

Well, that’s a great point, Becky, I think we can make some assumptions about the understanding we might have about the power of goal setting. But what we do know from research is that when we do set goals, people achieve more, they actually achieve the things in their life that they’re aiming to achieve. The research shows they are actually happier and healthier as well. Because we’ve got that momentum, we’ve got that sense of wellbeing, we’ve got that self assurance that’s developing and the self esteem that goes with that as well. And the other part is setting goals that are within reach, but also being clear on some of those stretch goals at the same time. So we’re building some momentum, because we’re getting those wins. And like you said, in our last conversation, celebrate those wins. And at the same time, let’s stretch ourselves as well. So from a ‘why’ point of view, we actually feel a lot more motivated and energetic as well, because you’re actually going to attack life or approach life in a much more positive way. And I just want to say, you mentioned those four boxes on page three, and they are intentionally general to help people with some guidance and lead us in this goal setting process to identify some areas you might consider. But the bit I’m adding here is if there’s an area you really want to achieve a goal in, write it in on that sheet, make sure you capture it as well. Don’t think that’s limiting you and where you want to have those goals. For example, when we talk about health, we might be talking about mental, emotional, spiritual, or physical health, it could be any of those.

Becky Hammond  04:09

So I have to ask you, why does health make this list? So there’s certainly going to be some very specific business or career oriented things, potentially there’s something regarding a financial goal that we want to meet. But why does health make this list?

Murray Guest  04:37

Well, I think if anyone listens to you and I talk, they know that health is something that we know is extremely important. You can’t show up and serve others, you can’t show up and be the best leader you can be whether it’s a leader of an organization you’re working, or a leader of your own family, whatever it might be, if you’re not looking after yourself. Your vehicle isn’t going to run if you don’t put fuel in it, so you need to put fuel in that body as well. And that fuel is mental, emotional, physical, spiritual as well. And again, reflecting on our previous conversation, that’s been a big lesson again for myself and a lot of people in 2020. About how we do need to look after ourselves to deal with the ups and downs of life. So 100% health has to be in there.

Becky Hammond  05:25

A conversation I was having with a leader just a few weeks ago comes to mind as I think about the importance of health. And I think even as leaders, if you’re here joining us and walking through this, you’re probably not thinking, ‘Oh, health doesn’t matter’. But sometimes it’s hard to give it its weight. And there was a leader that I was working with who was going through some pretty significant health tests that had potentially very difficult news attached with them. And that stress showed up everywhere. She even missed a call with me, that was very unusual – this coaching client is usually right here. And she didn’t show up. There was a long explanation of what is going on. And instead of addressing, she dived into work more severely. And then she shared that there was some serious relationship stress at home as well. And all of that can lead to a potential health issue. And so to me that just drove home the importance of adding health and wellness, and specific goals around how we’re showing up in our physical, emotional and mental bodies.

Murray Guest  07:11

And I can’t credit the owner of this quote, because I can’t remember right now, but the one that’s sticking out right now is that self care isn’t selfish. That was a great example there with that lady you’re working with where we can get into the busyness of life and forget about looking after ourselves. But that investment in our own self care in our own health and wellbeing is so important, and it’s not selfish. By doing that, that’s going to enable you to show up and serve other people. So important, right. And I’ve seen a play out over the years with different leaders, and leaders that do it best are looking after themselves. And they’re setting that example for those people around them, those people that they lead. And they are then showing up to be the best leader they can because they are looking after themselves. And so when you are looking at your health goals for 2021, as Becky was just saying, get really clear – what does it look like? What does success look like for you at the end of 2021? How would you measure that? What does it look like? What does it feel like? And be realistic. If you want to run a marathon, but you’ve never ran before, is that going to be realistic? It may be or may not, you know, you’re taking into account where you are in your well being. For me, I’m not going to put that I’m going to touch my toes. I haven’t touched my toes since I was two years old. But it’s about, what does that look like? And then we’re going to talk in our next conversation about then getting clear on some actions to work towards those goals. But let’s be really clear, what do those goals look like? And then what are some practices to help you get towards those goals. So there’s four areas that we see as key in your wellbeing and health, your personal relationships, or that personal part of your life. And those relationships might be friends, might be family, it could actually be relationships within your work field as well, because relationships are so key, and we talk about that and what it is to give it in the program. We also have finance and wealth. And I know from all the leaders I’ve worked with over the years that finance is one of those stressors that we have in day to day life. Yeah, so we want to get some clarity in that one. And then the first one actually on the page is your career, your business. So if you’re a business owner, where do you want to be at the end of 2021? If you’re an employee, if you’re a leader within an organization or a business, it might be where do I get to be in my career? Is there a change? Is there a leveling up? Is there a new role you want? But take some time out and articulate what that looks like for you.

Becky Hammond  10:13

And what specific language do you feel like has been the most helpful? Like, it comes to my mind that maybe it’s easy for me to say, Okay, I want to do better – you know, use words like ‘better’ and ‘more’. And things like, I want to make more this year than I did last year, or I want to be healthier. So what do you recommend? What’s most helpful when you’re kind of filling out these boxes?

Murray Guest  10:53

So that’s a really good question. Because I think the easy thing is to be very high level and broad in that description, like ‘be healthy’ or ‘be smarter’, because I’ve read a book or something. But you want those goals to be in that SMART framework, which is an acronym of Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-bound. So this is the process of getting real clarity in your goals – you can’t measure something that’s not specific. So if we want to improve our wellbeing, or we want a change in our career, and what if we write down a new job? You know, what can we do with it? What’s happening? So get really clear. It might be ‘I have a new leadership position, where I’m leading a project team’, right?

Becky Hammond  11:54

That definition for you like happier at my job or more fulfilled in my job that, that would be something like ‘I would feel more fulfilled in my job, if this specific thing was achieved’.

Murray Guest  12:07

Yeah, it could be something like that. Or if you know, in the finance category, there might be something that you’re writing down that along the lines of, ‘I have more money’. And you could have $1 more at the end of 2021, or you could have $10,000, more or $100,000 more. But if you actually have a more specific goal, like I have paid off my mortgage $50,000, or I have saved X amount of dollars for a holiday in 2022. Or I have paid off my credit card debt of $10,000. So getting really clear, because once you’ve got that clear clarity in that goal, you’ve now got 12 months to work towards that and we can start to chunk it down into achievable steps to achieve that goal.

Becky Hammond  13:01

Okay, that just kind of all became clear goal clarity for me as well. And then there are some questions at the bottom of that page that that can kind of help guide that process. One of the ones I love the most was ‘what does success look and feel like?’ So it kind of pairs with those two questions before, it’s like, how do I know I’ll have been successful, how do I measure my success? But then also, not just that’s the goal, but what does it feel like so that we can take that into our action steps and motivate us to get out of bed early in the morning or motivate us to not go out to eat that night because we know that we’re saving towards that 2022 vacation or whatever those little incremental steps will be because we need to know we’re not as rational as we are. The research out of Gallup says that 70% of the weight in our decisions is actually what feels like the more of the irrational aspects of it. And so if we don’t know what it’s gonna feel like at the end, then we won’t have the motivation to get to that goal, especially if it feels like a really big goal.

Murray Guest  14:13

Yeah, and you might think something around ‘do I feel more comfortable in my clothes because I feel healthier’, or ‘I feel more engaged in my job’. Okay, so what does that look like? How are you doing that? And then again, we want to chunk that down to what are the steps to work towards looking like I feel more connected with my partner, my life partner. Okay, so what does that look like and what are you doing and and what are some steps you do along the way to achieve that as well? And I totally agree that there’s the numbers which are important in measuring our goals, getting that clarity, but what does it feel like? Because those feelings are so important. I bought a car in the last couple of years and I remember I did all the research on YouTube, I watched so many videos of these cars and their performance. But it wasn’t until I sat in the cars did I say, ‘is this the one for me?’ I sat in a couple, I went No. And then Tammy and I sat in the car and said, Ah,  this is the one. And it was that feeling. 

Becky Hammond  15:22

So you can feel it yourself, you can see yourself doing it, and you’re in a happier place. Even if it’s right there in the seat of your car.

Murray Guest  15:30

Can I just say you’ve raised a really good point here about visualization. So in helping you get clarity in those goals, take that time out with your favorite beverage, might be a cup of tea or coffee, water, juice, whatever it might be, sit down, or one glass of wine.

Becky Hammond  15:47

I think you’ve missed a key category!

Murray Guest  15:51

But sit down, close your eyes and visualize what that success looks or feels like. Yeah. And if you can visualize it, and you can start to articulate it, then you can start to write it down, then you can start to get that clarity. And you might want to percolate on this for a little bit, and sort of come back to it a couple of times. But then, and of course, once you get that in place, there’s these goals at the end of 2021. You can revisit those, and we really encourage you to revisit those as you go along. Because you’ve put them out there, but you know, keep visualizing them and seeing those and we’ll talk about some ways to to actually bring them to life too.

Becky Hammond  16:28

Yeah. Okay, so I love this idea of envisioning and visioning what it is that you want the end of 2021 to look like how you’re feeling what you’re doing, who you’re with, you are really, really good at that, because you have high futuristic strength, let’s say you’re working with somebody else that doesn’t have that strength, I’m not gonna mention any names…myself. It strikes me that it’s an amazing opportunity for partnerships. And in a couple of other conversations down, we’re gonna talk about accountability and partnership. And this one feels like a real a place for that, where, you know, I can say, Okay, I kind of want to do this, and then somebody with talents like yours, or like my husband’s or other strategic thinkers, or futuristic thinkers can help us think about, okay, so then, how are you feeling? What would be different about you, if you do achieve those goals? And so if you are a much more linear or practical thinker, you might want to partner with somebody who can really cast a vision and who can vision like that.

Murray Guest  17:41

Yeah, and that partner might be your your life partner, or another partner you might have, there might be a work colleague, it could be someone in your team, it could be somebody in your network, it could be a friend. But it’s someone that you can talk this through with, that is going to bring a perspective different to yours. And it’s going to help you see that different perspective, to then work towards your goal, and how you’re going to get there. So I’ve got a couple of friends, and we have great conversations around our goal setting. My wife and I have some, I would say, complementary strengths that really help. Tammy’s high activator, like how you gonna take action on that, where I’m thinking about the future. So they work really well together. But think about those people in your life, like Becky, you talked about so beautifully, then about who you can partner with to really help you do that, and you’ve got that on this piece of paper, and you’ve got that written down, you want to make it visual for you too, as a reminder. So what we did a few years ago, was bought those chalk markers. And we write our goals on our mirror in our bathroom. So when you get up in the morning, and you’re washing your face, and you’re brushing your teeth, and before you go to bed, you see those goals on the mirror, whatever that might be. And so we turn those over. Because they’re smaller goals we’ve chunked down, you might want to put them on your mirror, on your fridge, on the screen on your your laptop, on your phone, or you might want to create a vision board with pictures that really capture what you’re working towards as well. And I’ve done a vision board a number of times over the years, and it’s been really powerful to really help me get clarity about, Okay, what am I working towards? What does that look like? What does it feel like?

Becky Hammond  19:32

Cool. I love that. I love also how that gets to answering the question of, what if I’m just not a goals person, you know, like, what if it just doesn’t feel natural for me to write out that specific number goal and say like, I’m not going to be happy unless I have this one thing. So I think it frees that type of visioning and maybe having a creative space for goal planning. Instead of an analytical space for goal planning. Yeah, it really helps with people who are just like, man, I don’t know, like, if I plan it feels more confining for some people to plan a goal to say like, oh, if I am trying to go towards this, what if I miss out on all these other opportunities that are happening around me. I think of the Clifton Strengths talent theme of Adaptability. People who lead with high adaptability, oftentimes, that’s not their thing. I was coaching a young leader who just felt a lot of freedom from understanding, oh, I have Adaptability strength, and then I can look back even in his short career so far, and say, well, if I would have had like a very specific goal, I might not have even met this neighbor who introduced me to this person who introduced me to this person who finally, let me in the door, right. So you know, I think the why of goal planning, like we talked about at the beginning is very clear that people who set goals are more likely to have that feeling of success at the end. Yep, to achieve their success, it doesn’t necessarily mean that things can’t shift mid course, doesn’t necessarily mean you have to do it in this very structured or linear away, it can be in pictures. It can be on massive whiteboards, it can look different for different people.

Murray Guest  21:26

And I’ll just jump in there, Becky and say something that I’ve seen people do really well that’s worked for them, too, is a Pinterest board. A Pinterest board is, you know, in a digital environment, here are the pictures that represent what success looks like for me in 2021. And I’m just starting to collect pictures of holidays, or parts of finance, or my health or relationships or my career, whatever it might be. And it’s just capturing all those pictures there. And that’s what success looks like. I’m getting clarity in that. And I’m working towards that. And just to top that off, a leader I worked with, what they would do every year is write a letter to themselves from the end of the year.

Becky Hammond  22:08

Hmm, interesting. Okay, so they are themselves, but they’re thinking of themselves a year from now. And they’re writing a letter to themselves now, saying, This is how I feel this is how I’ve achieved it.

Murray Guest  22:20

Spot on. Yeah, powerful and takes a bit of time. But again, is one of those processes that works for some people. And this one worked beautifully for this leader, where she would get absolute clarity in what success looks like, because she’s putting herself in the future and writing it down back to herself 12 months earlier, this is what I’ve achieved. And this is how I got there. And it was such a powerful process.

Becky Hammond  22:21

Wow, I love that. Well, if you leaders do that with this page three of the success map, then you are like a plus plus, because that is an amazing way to envision what it will be like at the end of this year, when we have you have achieved some of these things that you get to jot down on picture here.

Murray Guest  23:08

So if anyone is forming some vision boards, or they’re putting together some pictures, or they want to share this goal setting process, of course, please let Becky and I know – tag us on social media, we’d love to see, it inspires us. And it’s going to inspire other people as well to see that. So yeah, look forward to seeing some of those.

Becky Hammond  23:28

Yeah, and if you don’t have the success map yet, you can find that at leaderswhogiveadamn.com/successmap2021. Or you can just go over to the homepage there and there’s a Resources tab where you can grab that. That’s a free download for you. And we are excited that we’ve been able to be your virtual coaches to walk you through some of this. And so if there are still questions that you have about any of these pages, or any of these steps or questions along that are asked in the success map along the way, please do reach out to us, you can connect with either of us by DM’ing us on Instagram or on LinkedIn. And you can find us by emailing us at hello@leaderswhogiveadamn.com. So we we are available at any of those places, and we’d love to hear from you. And even if you’re questioning different parts of the process, we would love to get your your insight and help you walk along the process as well.

Murray Guest  24:23

Thank you, Becky, this was so good. This inspires me, these conversations, and thinking about and obviously feeding my Futuristic strength and business success in 2021. And we don’t know what 2021 is going to look like. But what I do know is if we get clarity in where we’re working towards, with whatever does come at us in 2021, we’ll be able to respond better, because we know where we’re going. So I want everyone to consider that and look forward to talking to you in our next conversation about taking action and kicking off 2021 with success. Thanks again.

Becky Hammond  24:57

Yeah, thanks Murray.