Let's cool it with the goal setting
4 tips to set your direction for 2023 and say a gentle f**k you to New Year propaganda
If your carefully-curated corner of the internet looks anything like mine, you’ve spent your last week wading through end-of-year content. From the woo to the win-at-all-costs, you’ve likely been knee deep in calls to action that are (seemingly) helpful, and (definitely) problematic:
“The annual review process that will change your life”
“How to set goals that will actually stick”
“Don’t wait until Jan 1 to start XYZ”
“An intuitive approach to goal setting”
“Easing into the new year”
“What high performers do to start the year ahead of the pack”
While the authors behind this litany of listicles would probably certainly hate to be grouped together, their end-of-year manifestos all share one fundamental flaw: a complete and utter lack of nuance.
Something tragic happens to words when they are shared out of context and left open to interpretation. Suddenly, well-meaning soliloquies go from suggestions to assertions. The gray area leaves the room and all that’s left in its place is black and white. Subsequently, the implication is that if you don’t adhere to this or that piece of advice, you are set up to fail before you’ve pressed play on the new year.
As pure as the intention might be behind all of these ‘helpful’ hints, intention is nothing without action. In this case, the action is words written on paper, templates shared to set you up for goal-setting success, and questions you should ask yourself to “guarantee a good year” — all of which are symbols of someone’s egoic belief that there is a “right way” to kick off the year. And so is born the death of nuance.
With that diatribe on the barrage of self-help self-righteous New Year content aside, I do believe the end of the year presents the perfect opportunity to self-reflect. But I also believe there is a better way.
That’s where I come in. I’m here to provide a few tools for a gentler way to approach your annual year-end reflection - focused less on binary successes and failures of the year behind and the one ahead and more on the opportunity to learn, integrate, and level set.
I share this not because I think I have the answers (I don’t), but because somewhere along the way, I fell victim to the notion that I had to have my whole year planned by 9 AM on January 1st to “succeed”. But that way of operating just doesn’t work for me. And it might not work for you either.
I have trial-and-errored my way to an evergreen set of goal-setting parameters that work for me. Perhaps they might work for you too.
A new approach to “goal” setting
I’ve said it before and I’ll inevitably say it again: I don’t believe in one-size-fits-all solutions. That principle applies to goal setting as much as it does anything else. But (and this is an important but) while the methods may vary, I do think the spirit of the exercise is important for everyone.
So, why do I think end-of-year reflection (or anytime reflection) is important? I’ll tell you.
Fundamentally, all we have is time. If our time is not well-directed, we will inevitably flounder. Floundering leads to regret. Goal setting (which I will heretofore rebrand as “direction setting”) provides a means to mitigate the floundering. Goals can be as simple as “ease” or “compassion”, but the simple act of codifying the goal is permission-giving in and of itself.
With that, I figure I might as well throw my hat in the ring and offer my own spin on the classic approach to goal setting. This does not (and should not) be reserved for the end of the year, but there is no better time to start than a change marked by a new number at the end of the date.
With that, I bring you four tips for goal setting:
Focus on how you want to feel vs. what you want to achieve
Set anti-goals to get clear on what matters
Index on where you want to be vs. how you want to get there
Aim for consistency over perfection
These tips are not mutually exclusive (which hurts my former consultant's heart), but rather context-dependent. Together, they allow you to approach goal setting with (what I think) is a much more pragmatic and empowering approach, creating a system that invokes grace vs. shame and ultimately sets you up to succeed rather than fail.
1) Focus on how you want to feel vs. what you want to achieve
So here’s a hot take, achievement cheapens self-worth.
What does that mean? It means that by focusing on what you want to achieve you are minimizing what you are inherently capable of and, as a result, missing the point entirely.
I hear you on the other end of your computer thinking “okay Izzy, land the plane. Stop pontificating, and tell me what the hell that actually means.”
Noted. I am landing the plane.
Focusing on what you want to achieve implies you are only as good as those achievements.
Focusing on what you want to feel is much more sustainable. Not only that, the things you want to achieve are actually just heuristics for how you want to feel. Example:
“I want a job that pays me X” - what you are really saying is “I want to feel financially secure and emotionally valued”
“I want to meditate every day” - “I want to feel inner peace”
Focusing on what you want to feel gives you the latitude to take a million different roads to get there. It’s also a great compass and framework for making decisions.
Example:
Say I decide that for 2023 I want to focus on 3 things: peace, playfulness, and connection.
Great. Now every time I have a hard decision ahead of me, I can ask myself “will doing X make me feel more peace, more playfulness, or more connection?”
It offers a built-in prioritization framework that also gives me the freedom to flex and evolve. The same approach can apply to setting value-oriented goals.
I don’t really want to have things or accolades, and I doubt you do either. Rather, I want those things because of how I *think* they will make me feel. So why not focus on cultivating the feelings in the first place? Seems fairly bulletproof to me.
2) Set anti-goals to get clear on what matters
This principle is quite simple.
Knowing where you don’t want to go is just as (if not) more valuable than knowing where you do want to go. In fact, to provide a real-life example, knowing what I don’t want has allowed me to define the guideposts for carving my career path.
We, humans, are fickle beasts. Adverse incentives can work well for us. The same applies to goals.
I may not know where I want to go, but I sure as hell can tell you where I don’t.
So, how can you action this one? It’s simple:
Sit down and take inventory of how you spent your time over the last year
Next to each major item, make note of if it gave you energy or drained your energy - the energy drainers will be our focus
Likewise, apply the same logic to outcomes - what outcomes do I want to avoid?
Now, codify the actions and outcomes you want to avoid by writing them down in a place you will revisit
Voila, you have a list of anti-goals.
Knowing what you don’t want can also serve as a great compass for making aligned decisions. Do you sense a trend here?
3) Index on where you want to be vs. how you want to get there
I can tell you right now that if you commit to “5 workouts a week,” you will fail. Inevitably one week midway into February you will miss day 5 and you won’t be able to get back on track.
Now, on the other hand, if you commit to “squat 1.5x my bodyweight by X date” or “feel good in my clothes”, those are goals you can achieve. Why? Because you are focusing on the destination rather than imposing a journey to get there. In reality, there are many routes to the same destination.
In my opinion, being overly prescriptive in goal setting is not making your life easier, it’s only making it easier to fail.
I like to define my success measures and give myself the freedom to explore on my way there. It’s similar to point number 1 - the difference is that here you can focus on a specific outcome, while still recognizing there are a million ways to achieve it.
For example, earlier this year I found myself relatively out of shape. I made a commitment to myself to end the year feeling better in my body. Along the way, I signed up for a half marathon. Ultimately, I had to sit out the race due to an aggravated hip. Had my goal been “run a half marathon” vs. “feel good in my body”, I likely would have felt like a failure. Instead, I just redirected my energy and chose another route to the destination. It led me to discover an entirely new modality of training - kettlebells - that I now love. As a result, I fell back in love with training and the byproduct is that my clothes are fitting the way I like them to.
4) Aim for consistency over perfection
We are going to take a page out of James Clear’s book (literally) for this one.
If you do have a discrete goal you want to achieve, don’t set yourself up for failure by overwhelming yourself with expectations. Instead, create a practice of consistency.
Over time, consistency creates habits. Where habit and passion intersect, that consistency can easily produce expertise. And just like that, you’ve likely achieved your goal and pushed the bar even higher.
Let’s use writing as an example:
Say I want to become a better writer in 2023 (I do, so this is a selfish example).
Rather than prescribing unattainable goals for myself, I am simply committing to showing up.
I have blocked time in my calendar every day to write. 10 minutes - that’s all.
By showing up, I will build a habit. That habit will manifest (I hope) in more consistent newsletter publication, a growing audience online, so on and so forth.
On the contrary, I just know that if were to goal a certain number of newsletters, I’d become easily overwhelmed the moment I (inevitably) got off pace. So instead, I am triangulating my way to the same outcome in a slightly more forgiving way.
Bringing it all together
I can’t round this one out without reminding you that these are just suggestions, loose parameters that you can use, adapt, or throw in the trash.
If you respond well to quantitative, time-bound goals, borderline draconian goals - don’t let me hold you back!
If you don’t or if you tend to get so overwhelmed by the noise this time of year that you don’t take any time to reflect and you subsequently find yourself at the end of every year wishing you had been more thoughtful, I recommend a bit more of a malleable approach.
I hate to be that girl, but I can’t stress the importance of having a strong true north enough. So the key is finding a process for reflecting and projecting that works for you.
In a world where decision paralysis is a common affliction and the list of options available is ever-expanding, it’s important to have a set of values and parameters to bring calm to your chaos.
Let me know how you approach setting goals that are guideposts vs. rubrics!
Interested in going deeper? Respond to this email and I will send you my tried and true annual review template.