why i started setting goals

In 2005, my good friend and I started setting goals together as a fun activity to celebrate the new year. We’d meet up in December or January, chat about the highs and lows of the past year, and set goals for the upcoming year. I didn’t set out wanting to change my life. I was going through a very happy time, and this was a light annual tradition that I could share with my friend. It was fun, exciting, satisfying, all the good things. It’s only with hindsight that I realize what an important practice she initiated and how I had stumbled upon something that ended up being truly life changing.

When I first started sharing my goals in 2012, I had trouble staying focused on what I wanted to achieve. It took many iterations of setting goals, not quite meeting them, and tweaking them year after year to eventually make some headway. Sharing my goals on YouTube gave me the chance to think through what I wanted to achieve, articulate my goals, receive feedback on them, and develop the external accountability I needed to make a solid effort to follow through. I started viewing myself from a new perspective — one I hadn’t really considered before as I was not particularly self-reflective at the time. I started making headway in 2014, which you can clearly see in my videos. I also started honing in on what truly mattered to me. Looking back, I never set goals relating to achievements in the professional space or growing an audience. Instead, I pursued self-development goals in the hopes of becoming a better person for myself and my loved ones.

Over time, I found that the more I set goals and reflected on how I did, the more I learned about myself. And the more I learned about myself, the easier it became to set new goals, discard the ones that weren’t serving me, and continue with the ones that really mattered. Over the years, I’ve refined my goal setting process and, each year, I grow closer to developing a sustainable practice of self-reflection, self-improvement, and self-care. In this section, I share what’s been working for me right now. As you move ahead on the journey of goal setting, I’m certain you’ll find what works best for you.

My goal setting process

Step 1: DECIDE ON a theme for the year

What does your ideal life look like? What do you really want to achieve?

It’s important to set a vision and know your main objective for the year. In recent years, I’ve had a lot of success with coming up with a theme that’s phrased as an affirmation — something I want to instill in myself throughout the year. For example, in 2019, my theme was, “you have everything you need,” and in 2020, my theme was, “believe in yourself.” 

A few recommendations:

• Give your theme some thoughtful consideration. I generally start thinking about my theme at least a week or two before the upcoming year. I try to read inspiring books during that time, and I “try on” my theme before implementing it.

• Keep your theme simple.

• Infuse your theme into your daily life. With a simple theme, you’ll be able to remember it and repeat it as an affirmation each day. I also like to change my smartphone’s name to my theme. I journal on my theme and generally just keep it top of mind so it becomes ingrained deep within me.

Step 2: set specific tactical goals

In this step, I set specific tactical goals that will nudge me in the right direction during the year. I follow my intuition to determine what I truly want to achieve, but when it comes to developing the wording for the actual goal itself, I use the SMART criteria. Each of my goals must meet all of the following criteria:

SMART Criteria #1 — SPECIFIC

Set a goal that is clear and unambiguous. For example, instead of saying, "I want to save money," you could instead set a goal like, "I want to save $5,000 by December 31, 2020."

SMART Criteria #2 — MEASURABLE

Set a goal that can be measured objectively. Usually, if you set a goal that aligns with SMART Criteria #1, it should already be sufficiently measurable. For example, it will be very easy to measure whether you have achieved the goal of saving $5,000 by the end of the year.

SMART Criteria #3 — ATTAINABLE

A key component of goal design is to focus on something you have control over. For example, a goal to reach 10,000 YouTube subscribers isn’t within your direct control, but you can set a goal to stick to a regular posting schedule. Another recommendation is to set a goal that is neither too easy nor too difficult to reach. I like to set goals that will require some effort but are not impossible to attain. For example, setting a goal to save $5,000 this year could be too aggressive if your annual income is $2,000 — it is unlikely that you will reach your goal. Conversely, if you annual income is $100,000, your savings goal will likely be too easy to attain.

SMART Criteria #4 — RELEVANT

Set a goal that you actually want to achieve. This is basically the "so what" test. This sounds intuitive but it’s amazing how many times I’ve set goals that I thought I wanted to achieve but actually weren’t a high priority for me. Or I’d set a goal that I thought sounded good, but it didn’t really suit me. In the age of social media, blogs, and a general abundance of opinions around us, it’s incredibly easy to fall into this trap. It’s important to set a goal you actually care about and want to attain. I set most of my goals according to my "big picture" objectives but I also have a few that fall outside my main theme — that's ok as long as the goals I'm setting are important to me. This is a great area to revisit if you find you’re falling short of your goal during the year.

SMART Criteria #5 — TIMELY

Set a goal with an end date. It is important to have an end date in mind when setting a goal so you can circle back and measure whether you have actually attained your goal. While you can set goals at any time of the year, I generally prefer to set them at the beginning of the Gregorian new year. This is a great time for self-reflection as it feels like a clean slate and an opportunity to start over. It’s also nice to have something to look forward to after the holidays and something to work on at the start of the year, when it’s generally cold and dreary in the northern hemisphere. In this case, the end date would typically be the end of the calendar year, i.e., December 31, 2020.

Step 3: meet your goals one day at a time

Once you have your shiny new theme and goals in hand, it’s time to start infusing your theme into your life and meeting your goals. My advice here is to take it one day at a time. Don’t set out to change completely right away. Instead, look at each day as an opportunity to take a step towards your ideal life. Be gentle with yourself and give yourself the whole year to develop new habits and make small shifts to your lifestyle. Over time, these will add up to big changes.