#221: What You Need to Know To Achieve Your Goals [Rewind Episode]

[00:01:02] Welcome to the Life & Law podcast. Today, we are covering my number one secret ingredient to accomplishing your goals.

So last week we talked a little bit about this already, and so we went into goal setting specifically last week. Now, something else that we kind of mentioned, but I'd like to highlight here is goal achievement actually requires you to do something called failing forward.

And what that is is it's a concept about learning from your mistakes, learning from unexpected circumstances, and if you're open to it, allowing yourself to fail or at least admit that you failed and made mistakes so that you can learn from. From those experiences and hence utilize what you've learned to achieve more.

And not just more, but achieve more of what you want more quickly.

Now, that is very hard. It is very uncomfortable. We talked about that a little bit last week, too. I would encourage you, though, to really open your mind to this whole concept of failing forward, because obviously it's a big mental shift for a lot of us. We don't like to make it. We don't like to fail. I think lawyers especially don't like to fail. We are used to winning. We are taught to compete and win and do well and do the best job possible and be perfect and all of that. Right? But the fact of the matter is, is we learn best from failures and mistakes sometimes, and we're gonna make them, and it's okay to make them. And so today we're kind of talking about getting honest and getting real around where we've made mistakes, where we failed, what's gone wrong in our past, especially this past year, really this past year, and how to utilize that and the lessons learned and to really fully learn the lessons that were meant to learn from those experiences. So that we can leverage them into the year ahead.

That is my secret to actually accomplishing your goals. Because what this mentality gives you is it opens you up to learning more about yourself, about other people, about the world, and then how to utilize the strengths that you have, the skills that you have, and other people and other resources as well, and how to best then use them to your advantage in the year ahead so that you can propel quicker and more.

Okay, now, again, I've said this before, but this does not guarantee 100% success. But I'm going to tell you what it does guarantee for you, is that you will be more successful than you would without it, and that it will help you to fully live that version of success that you ultimately want.

Because what I'm trying to, to hopefully impart upon you through this podcast is open your willingness to take some risks and do new things and get outside of your comfort zone so that you can really fulfill your bigger potential in this world. Because what's the point if that's not what you're doing?

Why, if you're not going to fulfill the potential that you're meant to fulfill? At least that's my viewpoint.

So what today's process is going to help you with is to help you setting the right goals. Now, we went over a lot of that last week, but there's one more thing I want you to do, and that's the process we're going to learn today to help you set the right goals, to make sure you've thought about everything you need to think about to truly set the goals that are going to pull you forward the most, help you fulfill your fullest potential and achieve the things you want and create the life and the practice and the career, whatever it is that you do, wherever you are, okay, that you want.

And then, number two, that when it comes to goal planning, you've considered every single thing you possibly can to help you be as successful as possible at achieving your goals.

That's what we're really doing today. So what am I talking about? I am talking about going through a look back, a review of this past year to consider what you've learned, what you've succeeded at, what you failed at and why, what you did well, what you didn't do well, what you've, you know, all of the things.

And we kind of went through some of this already back when I talked about annual reviews, but we're going to get a little more in depth here and we're going to take this process and apply it specifically to what you want to learn about yourself and about what you really want in the year ahead and how to utilize this when setting your new goals and going through your goal planning process, which we will be getting to soon in a future episode as well. This is really about asking questions, and it's about asking the right questions. And there's about 15 of them that I want you to ask of yourself that we're gonna go through. So I am telling you right now, don't worry about writing these down. Just listen, think about them.

Understand why it's so important to ask these specific questions of yourself, and don't worry about writing them down, because I have them written down for you. So go to the show notes and find your free cheat sheet that's going to be in there that'll have all of these questions there, so you don't have to write it down. And also, some of you listen to this while exercising, going for a walk, driving in the car, you can't really write it down then either. So go to the Show Notes when you're done and be sure to grab them for yourself. Okay, so let's go through each of these questions and why you should ask them. So the first question, super simple, okay? What were your initial goals at the outset of this past year? What were they? So write down what your goal was, how you were going to measure it, the full goal, and this should be the initial goals that you set. So if the goals changed as the year progressed, we're not going to get into that yet. This is the first front line. You know, whatever it was you set back in January or December of last year, January of this year.

Number two, did you meet or exceed your original goal? Yes or no?

Easy yes or no, right? Just answer it.

Number three, what was the difference or the gap between what your goal was and where you ended up? Now, it could be a positive or a negative. Just write it down.

Now, it's really important here to be super honest because oftentimes we. We change them as we go because we realize I wasn't realistic. Circumstances have changed. I haven't done what I needed to do, and I'm halfway through the years. So now it's not realistic, even though it was. You want to be super honest, and you can't be if you're not honest here. So write these down as they were, okay? Be honest in your answers. Nobody else is going to see this unless you work with me, in which case I will, because we're going to ask these questions, right?

But nobody else Will see this and it's okay.

Number four, did you change a goal after you got started? And if so, what precipitated the change? What was the goal that you changed? Like how did you change it and did you meet that goal?

So this is where you basically, if you changed a goal as you went through the year, you write that down and you're going back through questions one through three for that goal. What was the goal?

Did you meet it or not? What was the gap or the difference, positive or negative?

Okay, enough about the actual what you did and did not do when it comes to your specific goals. Now it's time to go a little bit deeper.

Question 5, what habits helped you achieve or get close to your goal?

We all have habits, or maybe it's a routine or maybe it's something that we typically do.

It depends on the language that you use. Maybe you don't consider it a habit, but what helped you? What about your life? You, the way you live it, the way you go about things helped you achieve your goals that you achieved or at least get closer to it along your path. Okay, write those down.

Think about them clearly. Be honest. Sometimes it's harder for some of us to write down the good about ourselves. You want to do this because it's really important to understand what those things are because they can continue to help you and they may have helped you without you even being aware. So when you become more self aware, you can be even more intentional and they can help you more. Then go on to question 6. What habits made it harder for you?

We all have things that hurt us, right? That are habits.

Maybe you're not a morning person and you wanted to lose some weight this year and you thought you'd work out more in the morning because that's the easiest time to not get interrupted. But you rarely did it because you like to hit snooze every morning. So that would be something that made it harder. Be honest with yourself about what habits made it harder for you to achieve that goal, even if you did achieve it. But definitely if you didn't, what got in your way?

And it could be a habit, it could be a trait or a characteristic. I don't care how you use it, but what about you hindered you and how you approached your goal and how you went about trying to do it or didn't do it. Did you procrastinate? If you did, why? What was going on?

By the way, I have a whole episode early on on procrastination and usually procrastination isn't just about procrastination. There's something else going on. So. So if that's what you're finding is you tended to procrastinate, put things off, never really get to some of this stuff. Go back and listen to that. You're going to need to listen to it because it will help you get more clear about what was really going on.

And answer this question here. Okay, then go to the next question, which is, what success did you have? Now, success does not just mean achieving your goal. You've already written down before that you achieved your goal or not.

That's not actually what I'm asking. I am asking about what obstacles did you overcome? When did things come up that were hard or challenging, that you dealt with appropriately? What did you learn from your experiences? Did you develop new skills? Did you build confidence around something? It's not just about hard skills. It's soft, too.

So what successes did you, as a human being, both personally and professionally, in your development, did you have over the course of this past year as a direct result of the goal that you set and trying to go about achieving it? That's what we're really asking. Write those things down. And again, be honest with yourself.

Sometimes I find it's really hard for us to, like, say good things about ourselves. But you need to understand, you know, what you did, what you achieved internally, personally, how you developed. It's important that you celebrate these things, but it's also going to kind of help motivate you in the year ahead and give you some things to think about when setting and planning for your goals for the next year.

Okay, once you do that, go on to question number eight, which is what unexpected or unplanned circumstances or events impacted you and how did you deal with them?

So we all know that things happen that we cannot plan for. They're just not planned. Right? And sometimes maybe we should have, but we didn't.

That's where all this comes in to play. What happened?

When did circumstances change? How did that impact you and your ability to achieve the goal? Your ability to do the work you wanted?

And how did you deal with it?

And then think even deeper on that as part of this question. What do you choose to take or learn from that?

There's something to be learned there.

What do you choose to take from it, to learn from it? How do you want to grow as a result of that?

Okay, question nine.

What did you learn about yourself this past year? This is a little bit different than some of the other questions we've been asking.

Go deeper, push yourself harder. What did you learn about yourself? About what you're capable of, about what you don't like, about what you don't want to do around your guardrails, right? We all have internal guardrails on what we are willing and not willing to do or what's just worth it and not worth it.

What are yours? What did you learn about yourself?

So, for example, a lot of my business clients come in, especially my female business clients, come in really hating to sell.

And there's this perception that they have around selling is salesy, it's sleazy. I'm a lawyer, I shouldn't have to sell to people. Which is, by the way, not true. You have to sell if you want to build a business. And being a private practice lawyer, you do need to have your own business. You're basically kind of an entrepreneur in a way, right?

And so you do need to sell. Now the question is, what's your guardrail around selling? Because all selling is not the same. And everybody has a different unique style that they can step into that feels good and comfortable to them. I have a client who hired me this past year who basically came in specifically with that complaint, but knowing that she wanted to learn how to sell because she needed to.

And something that she learned about herself this past year is what her guardrails really are and what she does and does not like and how to step into selling in a way that feels really good to her because it's about serving people and it's about, you know, she is really good at connecting and building strong relationships with people. And she's learned how to connect with people when she networks and build a relationship and ask good questions that naturally then lead to asking for the business in a very natural, easy, convenient way. So that's something she learned about herself this past year. So that's the kind of thing I'm asking. Okay, what did you learn about you this past year then? Next question. What else did you learn this past year? So this could be something you haven't answered about yourself so far. If it comes up, it could be about other people. It could be about circumstances and how to deal with them. It could be about the way things work within your firm that you didn't know. I mean, a lot of things we learn, right, that we didn't realize before something happened. So what else did you learn? All of this is important to consider when setting goals and setting strategies for achievement. Hopefully you can see how. Oh, I could see how writing this down and being really intentional and getting it out there can impact how I set my goals and the way I go about achieving them. Right.

Okay.

Question number 11. What surprised you about yourself this past year and what do you choose to take from that?

So this might be similar to what you learned about yourself this past year, it might not. I like to ask this question because it forces you to then choose to take something from it and move forward with it.

And oftentimes when I ask it in this way, what surprised you about yourself?

People come up with new, different things than what did you learn about yourself.

So ask yourself in that way and when you're done with that, move on to the next question, which is what inspired you and why?

Different things inspire different people, and different things inspire you at different moments in life based on what your circumstances are, what you've been through recently, what your current goals are, and so on.

So think back on this past year and think about what inspired you and why it inspired you. That's important because it plays into your deeper seated motivations. It's probably values based and it will help you with creating that vision that you want so that you can more clearly set the right goals for yourself.

Next up is what's left undone that you want to pursue next year.

Sometimes this is nothing. I achieved everything or I got close and I don't need to do anything else on this. But sometimes things happen, they get in our way. We didn't fully achieve a goal or we had to give up halfway through because of something happening and changing our circumstances in such a way that we had to let go of it. So what's left undone that you want to pursue next year?

Next up, what do you want to say about yourself by the end of the next year?

So this could be accomplishments both personally and professionally, but also go a little deeper, of course.

Ask who do I want to be?

How do I want to look at myself? How do I want to look at my choices? What do I want to be able to say about not just what I've achieved this next year, but who I am as a human, how I've grown, the choices that I've made.

This is important because it really helps you to narrow in on what the most important goals are for you this next year? And it also sometimes helps with the strategies that you want to pick for your goal achievement. And then finally, your final question in this process, what do you need to do?

Where do you need to grow and develop most to accomplish that? To accomplish what you want to be able to say about yourself this next year.

This can kind of help point out other underlying goals you may want to set so that you can get there.

It may also point out resources that you might need can go in all different directions. So keep it open and just write everything down that you can think of.

Okay, so that is it. That is the process. Again, there will be a link in the show notes so that you can download a cheat sheet that has all of these questions in there.

When you are setting your goals, I want you to first go through this process. It's really important because it helps you a to set better goals and then B also to really think about, you know, how to best go about achieving your goals and how to leverage what you've learned, the strengths, the skills, all those things that make you uniquely you and good at what you do in going about your goal achievement process.

Okay, that is it for this week. I will be talking to you next week. Bye for now.