Where Do We Goal From Here?

By Brenda W Hargroves

Lately I’ve been thinking about my earlier article, The Never-Ending Chore of Organizing and Prioritizing Your Goals.

Years of collecting recipes has left me with filled binders and folders, along with numerous dog-eared cookbooks. I only selected recipes that required ingredients I had on hand or would buy because I might use in the future. The goal was to try and then review the recipe. I don’t know, possibly even start a blog. Unfortunately, this strategy has fallen flat on its face.

I refuse to subject my current goal — to establish myself as a professional author -- to a similar fate. The prioritizing your goals article mentioned above suggests that once you set a goal, the next steps are to give it direction by making a plan, focus on the plan and try to control factors that may hinder you from accomplishing your goal. The article also goes on to state, “Organize → Prioritize → Proceed begins a continuous process that morphs into Reorganize → Prioritize → Proceed → Reorganize → Prioritize → Proceed…”

Organize, Prioritize, Proceed. Done. – I recently found myself at a turning point in my writing goal-setting process. My problem? The plan to become a professional author splintered into several different directions. Working on a novel grew to include creating a blog, writing short stories, recording a podcast and co-administering a Facebook Group. Whew! I’d successfully managed to complete the organize, prioritize and proceed parts, but I became stuck because of all the pieces added to the plan.

Uh, Oh! Time To Reorganize – I attacked my goal by making a general list of tasks I wanted to address each week and added the ones I didn’t complete to the following week’s list. It worked out fine in the beginning. I soon found, however, that I was trying to accomplish too many things and had gotten lost in the process of figuring out what to do when. And unfortunately, I often ran out of time, which caused some tasks to continuously move from one week’s list to the next without me having made any progress in those areas. I definitely needed to begin the reorganize aspect of my goal-setting process.

Although it took me a minute to determine my next step, the solution turned out to be fairly simple. I drilled down further by assigning myself Monday through Friday daily tasks instead of making a general weekly list. I now tackle my daily task and complete as much as I can by day’s end. I start the next day with a different task and follow the same process. If I complete the day’s tasks and have work time left over, I go back to a previous day’s task that I did not finish. The entrepreneurship focus in me provides the discipline to work on tasks with specific deadlines over the weekend, if necessary. For more on the topic of entrepreneurship traits, check out my podcast What To Consider When Starting A Small Business/Nonprofit.

I take into consideration whether a project has a specific completion deadline and plan accordingly. For example, I always keep in mind my commitment to post a blog article every two week when scheduling my daily tasks. Last and most important, I highlight every completed task in yellow to celebrate what I’ve accomplished and to clearly point out what I need to add to the following week’s list.

There Is No End To This Process. Let’s face it. Each of us will continuously face goal-setting dilemmas as we continue on our journey. At certain points we must ask ourselves:

1. How well grounded are my goals?

2. What do I need to do to ensure success? For example, I am a classic introvert, but I know I have to be more visible in order to reach my writing goals.

3. Are your goals still SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timebound) or do they need tweaking?

Be honest with yourself. Is it time for you to consider next steps in your goal-setting process? You are the only one who can honestly answer that question. I suggest you get to it!