Setting Up Success in the New Year

Happy New Year! 🎉🥂

I can’t believe it’s already 2024. I hope you’ve already had a great start this year. It has been a tradition for me to set goals for the year when the year begins. I still hear that there are layoffs still happening, and it does create some uncertainty, but that should not stop you from setting your goals for the year. Setting goals are a good way to keep track not lose sight of the big picture when things are good, or if they are bad, it’s a way to help you get back on track when things get better. With that in mind, how do you set yourself up for success for the new year?

Agile Methodology to Set Goals for the Year

Agile methodology is a project management framework that breaks projects down into several dynamic phases, commonly known as sprints. What I like about using agile for your own life, is that you are creating a system of setting goals and achieving them. Take a pen and paper and write them down, because you can do this for more than just your career. Here’s how you can do it:

Goals — Plan out what you want to achieve for the year. It could be goals in career, your life or even my relationships. These help to set the stage for the new year. These goal should have quarterly targets, in which you achieve either part, or all of it. By each quarter, your reviews will inform you if you need to make changes, or keep going with the process that you currently have.

Set Processes — If you’re a basketball player, and you want to be the best, what do you do? You would go train right? Practice is the process of getting to being better. Of course, you don’t practice blindly. If you have a coach, the coach will tell you where your shortcomings are, and you improve on them, which is the same as reviews. But what setting processes does is to help you get things moving. The way I usually set up my processes is to see how my environment can support me—what this means is that, if I’m looking to study, can I afford the fees? Or if I’m looking to start a business, do I have pockets of time that I can utilise? Once I understand this, I could set a time where I dedicate myself to doing things at a time where I get no disturbance or distraction. Which means, if I’m deciding to do a side business, after my work hours, how many hours do dedicate myself to doing things to move the business forward.

Quarterly Reviews — Usually, when doing sprint retrospective, you would ask what went well, what didn’t, and what could be better. Set yourself a minimum of 10 questions that encompass those key questions. This could be done in small bite-sized weekly, or monthly reviews to help with the major quarterly reviews. For example, if your goals for relationships are to be better partners for your significant other (just a generic example), you could have questions to ask them, like “How well did you feel supported by me this month?” or “What are your most significant stressors at the moment?” and perhaps “What can I do better this coming month?” Your partner is at the receiving end of what you have done, so it is best that you ask them instead of you asking yourself.

Iterate — Now that you have feedback and data, use that to your advantage and make changes, improve on your processes. If you feel that you have been feeling sluggish at work, could morale be low? Or could something else be affecting you? These reviews can help you figure out and understand what your next course of action could be.

Build Pockets of Systems Within Your System

Systemising everything is not the answer, however, I have built pockets of systems within my system. I would love to expand on building systems some day, so hit reply to this email if you are keen on learning about it. Going by the example above, I have goals set for my life. The reviews I would do within the umbrella of Life is — Health, Relationships, Career, Finance. I have a general overview of life with overarching questions like “Am I happy? Have I been happy for the past month? What has made me sad or affected me negatively in the past month?” This will help me pinpoint which part of my life is affecting me positively or negatively, which I will then dive in deeper into those interconnected verticals. For example, if I haven’t been happy, what I would then seek further to review under health would be my mental state, identify what the problem is—it could be my relationship, or my job.

With that clarity on a paper, I then have the ability to map out exactly where my pain points are within my life and take action to make positive changes.

Recap

So to put everything together, in this new year, set your goals and put processes in place. Review them quarterly and if possible, do it every month, as this will help you build a healthy habit of doing self-reviews. Then iterate, make changes and improve on your processes to help you reach your goals faster or make your life better!

Reflect: There is no perfection in setting your goals as there is no perfection in life. I have heard of people saying that they want to wait for things to be better before they set their goals. 10 years have passed and they have yet to do anything that they are significantly proud of. With time, if you don’t make any progress, you regress.

Mentor’s Notes

If anything unfortunate happens, do make adjustment to your goals and change these targets, or put these plans on hold. Remember that agile methodology means that you do not have to stick with a plan that doesn’t work. Also, the more bite-sized reviews you do, the less difficult it is to do quarterly reviews.

Currently I’m reading Ali Abdaal’s ‘Feel-Good Productivity: How to Do More of What Matters to You’ and I think it’s brilliant book. So far, where I’ve read, it touches on how to keep productivity sustainable. I’ve yet to finish it, but I’ve read enough to recommend it. So if you’re keen, you can get it here.

Take care and have a great 2024 ahead!

P.S. Yes, as always, please share it with your friends if you think it’s useful.