Values and goal settings
Ten years ago my bestie and I sat down with a bottle (okay, several bottles) of wine and she introduced me to a goal setting tool she’d been given in a conference. Since then we’ve made a date to make and review our goals together every six months. We live on opposite sides of the country, but that hasn’t stopped us. We go through the sheet off the phone then call in and talk them through. The best thing about this is that over time, we’ve watched them change, and been able to see our shifting priorities.
What I love about this worksheet is that although it’s a lengthy process, it actually distils your goals down by establishing what is important to you at the time. That means that by the time you get to actually goal setting, you’ve done the hard work, and the goals come easily.
It works by helping you establish what your core values are, and how they are prioritized at a given time. It does this by a process of numbering so that by the time you narrow down your choices, the values emerge, rather than you having to try to make them up. Some thirty five options narrow down to ten, then rearrange themselves to give you a top seven, from which you can then goal set.
Something I’ve found fascinating is how values alter in priority. For example, I always have ‘authenticity and integrity’ as one of my core values – doing what I say, and making sure my actions and words match. It’s important to me precisely because throughout my life, whenever I deviate from what instinct tells me is right, I’ve regretted it. Every. Time. Whether it’s sending an email I have doubts about, to taking a job for the wrong reasons, or listening to others instead of myself.
For many years that value was top of my list. The goals I set around it were things like:
Live in an environment I truly love.
Work in an environment I am comfortable in.
Do work I’m proud of.
Write what I believe in.
Eventually, I got to place where all of those pieces were in place. Then my goals shifted to focus around another core value.
Our core values don’t change. They are a constant, the bedrock on which we base everything else we do. But understanding exactly which value is your current priority is an extremely valuable process that for me, has made all the difference to the way I set goals.
When I want to really give it a turbo charge, I time my goal setting to coincide with astrological power points – but that is a hippy post that I’ll save for another day!
I hope the process helps you too.