Hi there,

You've learned how to create your vision for 2023 in our previous blog, 'Create Your 2023 Vision'. In this blog, you'll take the next crucial step to create and achieve your thriving 2023. We shall discuss setting goals and clarifying milestones will give you a clear roadmap for the next 12 months.

How to Set Your Goals for 2023

The first step is to set a general statement of what you want to accomplish in one year. This trick will set the tone for what you do daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly, making the sub-goals more manageable and achievable.  

Step 1: Create a Long List of Goals

Think of everything you want to achieve by December 31st, 2023. Don't worry if you list several pages because the next step will help you determine your priorities. You can consider financial targets, personal development objectives, relationship targets goals, and career or business aims in your list. How about health and fitness, time, contributions, and emotional needs? These goals might feel absurd at first, but they will make sense as you go through the process.

 Step 2: Prioritise Your Goals

Use the 80/20 Pareto Principle to analyse your goals list. Focus on the 20% of objectives that bring you 80% accomplishment. You can also use other prioritisation tools to identify which 2023 goals must receive your utmost attention.

Step 3: Set Benchmarks and Actions

Goals are general statements of intent or what you want to achieve. Most are unmeasurable, making it challenging to evaluate progress. Setting a benchmark gives you a clearer picture of your objective. For example, launching three products and expanding the business to 100 customers is a measurable benchmark for the goal of $100,000 in business revenue. Writing a business plan and partnering with a business coach can form non-measurable actions related to the goal.

Step 4: Choose Secondary Goals

Analyse the remaining 80% of the goals listed and identify which will comprise your secondary targets. You can think of these as the next 20% that brings the next 60 to 80% accomplishment for 2023. 

Step 5: Identify the Resources & Systems Available

Part of planning is identifying the resources and systems you'll need to accomplish your goals. Now's the time to assess your existing systems (i.e., techniques, practices, strategies, and mindsets), allowing you to identify the most advantageous ones relative to your 2023 vision and goals. 

Set Quarterly Objectives

The year-long goal provides a clear direction of what you intend to accomplish in 2023. It's best to divide this into chunks to make it more realistic and achievable.  

1. Review the Immediate Past Quarter

Divide 2023 into three-month quarters (from January to March for the 1st quarter and April to June for the 2nd). The first step is to review your performance in the immediate past quarter. If you're doing your first quarterly plan for 2023, evaluate the accomplishments from October to December 2022 to get some ideas on the action steps necessary for advancement.

 2. Develop a Quarterly Vision 

Like your 2023 vision, you must also determine what the next three months will look like. It will give a general overview of what you intend to accomplish and help identify short-term goals. The clearer your vision is for the next quarter, the higher the chances of achieving your 2023 goals.

3. Set Quarterly Goals

The short-term goals emanate from your quarterly vision, which you can accomplish in the next 90 days. Ensure that it contributes to achieving your year-end vision. The idea is to create seemingly unrelated jigsaw pieces to fit into the year-long puzzle.

4. Choose Resources or Habits to Achieve Quarterly Goals

Forget your annual activities for now, and focus on the action steps, practices and techniques that will help you achieve the quarterly goals. It can be challenging to limit or discard some habits. So, analyse your strengths and use only those directly beneficial to quarterly goal accomplishment.

Develop a Weekly Plan

Three months seem like a short period. However, the quarterly goals are still sizable chunks. It's wise to divide them further into weekly bits.

1. Top 3 Essentials

Identify the top three priorities you want to accomplish for the week. Review your quarterly goals to determine which ones you must focus on and devote your systems for each week.

2. Ongoing Learning

Although not a must, it's best to continue learning new things. Building your knowledge empowers you to do more, including addressing your top three essentials more efficiently.

3. The Unschedule

Dr. Niele Fiore proposed interspersing fun times with serious work. Although you're dead set on accomplishing your top three weekly essentials, having a good time before you go down to the nitty and gritty stuff should brighten the week and help you achieve more.

4. Great, Urgent, and Non-urgent Tasks

Prioritise your activities to meet the top three essentials. You can spend a few hours each day to tend to "urgent" activities or important tasks but don't necessarily contribute to the overall goals for 2023. Non-urgent tasks require your attention only if you're through with the great and urgent activities.

5. The Parking Lot

Some tasks don't fit into the "great," "urgent," and "non-urgent" categories. You can "shelve" these temporarily until they become relevant. Who knows, these "unclassified" activities might become "great" or" urgent" someday.

6. Reviewing the Immediate Past Week

Make it a habit to evaluate how your week went before you start a new seven-day period. Determine the things that went according to plan and what else requires improvement. It will help formulate the plan for the next week.

Daily Planning

All you need is about ten minutes, preferably in the morning, to make your daily plan.

1. Intentions

Intentions emanate from the heart but exist in the mind, written down on paper, or put in an electronic organiser. Daily intentions can be the same throughout the year. For example, "I eat healthily" can condition the mind to consume only nutritious foods.

2. Things to Do

Review the weekly to-do list, including the "great" tasks, "urgent" activities, "non-urgent" chores, and "parking lot" items. Always prioritise the "great" before moving on to the "urgent" tasks. You can squeeze in a "non-urgent" activity if you've time. 

Hope this article has shed light on how to set your goals and milestones for 2023. Begin setting and clarifying your milestones now so that you can develop a clear and realistic roadmap for the year to come. I've developed a free virtual workshop for you, 'Design Your Thriving 2023'. Inside the workshop, I'll provide the step-by-step framework to help you set goals and vision for 2023 and create milestones that will support you in living your thriving year. I've also created a workshop to guide you along. Click here to sign up.

With gratitude,