How I set goals

Photo by Ronnie Overgoor on Unsplash

I went out for dinner with my friend Farrah last night. She is a big cheese in Substackland and persuaded me to start this newsletter. As we ate delicious pasta, we talked about work (one of our favourite topics of conversation) and I told her how much I was enjoying writing it.

I started this newsletter, with the aim that every week, I’d try and write something that might help someone. That reason still stands.

The second reason - which is an entirely unexpected byproduct - is that writing every week is really helpful for me. It helps me learn. It helps me process my thoughts and feelings, and gives me new information.

I’m sort of coaching myself. Every week.

This week, I am going to explain how I set my five year and ten year goals. I was asked to do this by a reader (I literally got a flip of joy writing that, the idea that I have readers). 

First things first - this is how I do it. I’ve cobbled this approach together from various different schools of thought, and various different places and while it works for me, feel free to ignore it if it doesn’t feel right to you. There are lots of experts out there, who are much more experienced than me, writing about this stuff. Feel free to google them. And I talk about end of life stuff. So if you are not in the right place for that, stop here. .

Sometimes when I am in a tough place, I haven’t been able to look beyond tomorrow. I didn’t actually set my goals this year until way, way into 2023.

So. If you’re still with me, the first place I want to invite you to, is your deathbed.

I know. Punchy.

I’m British. We are RUBBISH at talking about death. But here’s the thing. If you want to find out what REALLY matters, asking yourself “On my deathbed, what do I want to have achieved with my life” doesn’t leave much room for fucking about.

You can either answer that question, and answer it honestly, or you can run away from it.

You do you. If you want to run away, there is no judgement whatsoever from me.

But if you’re up for answering it, keep reading.

If you want to try this, it helps to choose a quiet moment when you won’t be disturbed, and to close your eyes.

When I ask myself this question, I find it helpful to literally visualise/imagine myself on my deathbed. I’m always actually in bed. And it’s a nice bed with lovely bedding and plump pillows. There is a window, there are trees and birds outside the window. I’ve got a pile of books by my bed, I have dogs on the bed (not allowed in my real life) and I’m surrounded by people I love. 

Get as detailed and as clear as you want to. Imagine whatever you want to imagine.

When I think about what I want to have achieved in my career from this imaginary bed, it’s pretty clear: Build a best practice coaching business that helps clients across the globe connect to their own brilliance. My reputation grows by word of mouth recommendations and through my own networks.  Coach anyone, from any background, brilliantly.  Focus my pro-bono work on people who are not as privileged as me. My income comes from three areas - coaching, writing and speaking.

When I first did this exercise (I can’t remember when it was, but it was with a coach as part of my training) instinctively, I felt it coming from deep down in my body. It also set my inner critic into an absolute tailspin.

When I read it what I’ve just written (it’s evolved since my first effort all those years ago) my inner critic says something like this: “Oh my God. Who do you ACTUALLY think you are. What an absolute pile of horseshit you sanctimonious, egotistical bitch”

And on, and on it goes. With more swearing, and eye rolling, and becoming increasingly vicious if I engage with it too much.

When you do this exercise, the goal you come up with SHOULD scare the shit out of your inner critic. If it doesn’t, you’re not going big enough.

Once you have an end of life goal that makes your heart and body sing and your inner critic implode with rage, you’re on the right track.

And here’s the important thing. Your goal can be just for you. You can share it with anyone you want, or not. I’m sharing mine, because I like all this coachy stuff, and I figure it might be helpful to see an example.

And it doesn’t need to be written in concrete. I did this exercise to help me make decisions in my life, to help me decide where to spend my time. Don’t make it a stick to beat yourself with.

So, assuming you’re still with me, once you have an end of life goal, let it percolate for a bit. Add to it. Take away from it. If you’re not a writer, paint a picture, create a pinboard of images, choose a song - whatever has meaning to you. Trust yourself.

When you know what you want your end of life goal is, you then have somewhere to start.

I am 52 now. So I work backwards in increments.

End of life goal for my career (80 years old - give or take a few years)

Ten year goal for my career (62 years old)

Three year goal for my career (55)

And one year goal for my career (53)

I recently changed one of my milestones from five years, to three, as it felt more helpful. Choose whatever timeframe suits you. If you’re studying, and you know your course comes to an end at a specific point, you might want to choose that as a milestone. Or you know you’re aiming for a promotion, or a job, or career change at a specific point in time, you could choose then.

For each of one of these points, I then have between three and five concrete points to bring them to life. Again, if you want more points, have more points. I read somewhere that humans can remember three to five things, and I knew I’d bore myself if I tried to make it more detailed.

For example, my three year goals for my career look like this:

• Write a book about the coaching techniques I use

• Be an established MCC coach

• Develop a new online course for a brand new audience/sector

• Do ten speaking engagements a year

So got that? I did Deathbed first. And then worked back in 10/3/1 year increments, and identify some key achievements for each year.

Do not do what I did, and let perfect be the enemy of good. I spent a LONG time faffing about this. It was on my to do list for ages. And then one morning, I took myself out of the office, went and rewarded myself with a nice nourish bowl and a lovely coffee (rewards before a task are more motivating than after a task) and nailed the whole lot within a couple of hours.

I also have them for other areas of my life - my health, relationships with my family and friends etc. You can do the same for those areas of your life that matter to you (see the piece on the wheel of life for ideas).

They give you something to aim for. Somewhere to head. And the very act of writing them down and thinking about them, can help you flush out those things that really, really do not matter. As well as those that do.

As always, I hope this is helpful. And I’d love to hear if you have different ways of setting goals that have worked for you.

Lisa x

P.S Sorry it’s a day later than normal. I wrote this yesterday but forgot to press the Publish button!