A must goal is an extremely important goal that will have a big impact in your life.  People often set a New Year’s Eve resolution as a must goal, but quickly forget about it or do not take the required action to achieve it.

Every year I re-publish my Year in Review Goal Planning PowerPoint workbook to help you review the past year and set your goals and plans for the new year. In my last week’s article and video, I suggested taking time to do the review part of the workbook and let that sink in before moving on the your goals and plans.

I just did this myself and reflecting on my past for a few days made things clearer on what I wanted to change. The planning section of the workbook suggests setting five goals for the year. But a must achieve goal should be one or two at the most.

Once you set your five goals go back and highlight the one or two that will change your life for the better. You might need to give yourself a day or two to reflect on the five goals. But it should be clear and you need to be ready to take action towards it.

A must goal can be daunting especially if it represents a big change in your life. A good way to start is to take a small step. This will give you confidence that you can achieve the goal by taking small steps. Of course, your goal needs to be S.M.A.R.T (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timed). You also need to have the skills required to achieve the goal or at least be able to learn the skills.

To plan each goal in more depth, download my one goal planning form and use that to map out each goal.

Usually a must goal that will have a big impact in your life is a personal development goal. If you goal is to be promoted in your job, what new skill or personal quality do you need to master in order to be considered for a promotion? If you need to save money for a trip of a lifetime, how can you develop the discipline to make those savings?

A personal development or behavioral goal will be more powerful than a goal to acquire something new as the behavior you need to develop, once acquired will facilitate you having the things you want.

If you want to be a better leader for example, what is holding you back right now or what is your weakness as a leader? Becoming honest with yourself and making steps to overcome the weakness will propel your career and opportunities.

After setting my five top goals for 2019 I took a few days to think about them. I was out for a walk with my dog and when I got back to my office something struck me. I knew I needed to set a goal or resolution to de-clutter my office and keep my desk tidy. It was something that annoyed me and kept returning to my thoughts. I know that having a clean workspace would help me focus and think more clearly. I immediately added this to my list of goals and highlighted it as a top priority.

Another highly important thing to do as part of planning is to set review dates. I set mine for the last Friday afternoon at 2:00 PM each month. They are in my agenda with email reminders. Ideally schedule a monthly review or minimum every quarter.

Get going on your goals and resolutions for 2019 or whatever year you happen to be in. Happy New Year and good luck with your goal achievement.