When is the Best Time to Set Goals, Evaluate Habits and Take Inventory of your Values?
Hint: it's not all of the time... and it's not never either (probably)!
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What are your goals for the rest of the year?
July 4th, we’re sitting down to dinner and my 10 year old step daughter strikes up a conversation about goal setting. “So, anybody have any goals for the upcoming year? I mean… the rest of the year?”
For her, goal setting has become synonymous with fireworks and there are displays on both New Year’s Eve and Independence Day. I’m not going to claim full responsibility for this development, but I’m not not saying I contributed to her understanding of when to set or evaluate goals either… after all, I probably set goals or at least evaluate how my goals are going quarterly.
She certainly brought a smile to my face with her choice of dinner topic.
I’m doing a deep dive into my goals, habits and desired outcomes for short term and long term right now!
I just spent 21 days in Europe eating different foods, moving my body more, free of my standard daily obligations and completely separated from my computer. Since habits are hardest to change when you’re in a well established pattern, coming off of a 3 week vacation like this, I see a huge opportunity to reevaluate the flow of my day to day right now, and everything is on the table.
Jet lag, vacation, hotel sleeping, restaurant dining and walking for extra miles each day are a complete pattern disruption for me… which means I have a brief window of opportunity to start a brand new routine for myself almost from scratch!
Recovering from jet lag has given me the opportunity to choose a sleep schedule that feeds my natural patterns and maximizes my most productive brain time.
Breaking my eating habits allows me to think about my past and future relationship with food.
Going sight seeing on this trip forced me to troubleshoot how to move my body for miles each day, which has sped up the recovery from my broken foot earlier this year in ways I couldn’t have guessed. So what comes next?
Habits, chores, personal goals & professional goals… everything is up for grabs! For me, charting my path forward from this moment is invigorating and exciting!
There are lots of ways to set and evaluate goals
For this big reset I started by looking at my schedule (the rough draft version). When do I want to wake up? How do I want my days to start? What time do I need to sleep to make that happen? What do I *think* the focus will be for each day?
The nice thing about a rough draft schedule, is implementation can be immediate, because I’m treating my schedule like a bit of an experiment to see what feels best in my body, with my family and for my work.
Next step: a values evaluation process to better understand what I think matters most and how I can allow my values to feed a sense of purpose as I think about my goals.
Speaking of… goal setting comes next, or what my dad used to call ‘taking inventory to chart a course’. These are specific goals with dates attached. And vary from short term (bring back date night next week!) to longer term (best selling book by June 1st, 2026). Some of these goals may or may not come to fruition exactly the way that I dream them, but I know that failing to add them to my inventory or not putting dates against them, guarantees they’ll never happen.
By setting goals with deadlines I give myself a fighting chance! This is because I can then create a workback schedule for myself and manage my goals the same way I might manage a client project. If I don’t know where or how to start in, then a discovery phase becomes the first phase of my goal. (Bonus! Having a discovery phase satisfies some of my improv impulse to jump in without knowing while making room for me to know more soon).
Timing Matters
I like do a full break down like this a maximum of twice a year, and at minimum every 2 years. Doing a deep dive like this is a timing choice. It’s difficult to tackle all of the questions at once. So I spread this deep dive process out over the course of a week or two, spending 30 minutes to an hour daily until all of my questions get answered.
In mid-Autumn and in the Spring I sometimes do a much more truncated process of evaluating where I am on the path I charted, acknowledging whats working, and tweaking what isn’t working. Sometimes that includes dropping something that’s turned out to be a time and energy waster, letting go of a goal I thought I wanted but decided I don’t, or picking something back up I forgot I wanted to implement.
Keep in mind, I’m an entrepreneur, so I’m in charge of a big percentage of my schedule every day. As you are thinking about your own schedule, values and goals keep in mind that there are elements of your life that you can control, and others that you’ll simply make choices around. If a deep dive is too time intensive, and all you have time and energy for right now is a toe dip… you can always break this into bits! Start by evaluating what you want the start and end of your day to be, or maybe spend an hour on a weekend taking inventory of your long term dreams.
When is the BEST time to Inventory Your Values, Habits and Goals?
Look. I know that for some of you just reading this has you feeling inspired. You’re already thinking about when you can carve out the time to do the same. I trust that you’ll find the time, when the time is right!
For others, you’re looking at this going… OMG I’m having heart palpitations thinking about this level of planning, how about I just never ever do anything like this? To you I say, you do you! I’ve known relatively successful people who’ve never engaged in this kind of work. I’ve also met people who set goals only to abandon them.
I engage with myself this way because I know that if I don’t, the pace of life’s obligations, twists and turns, along with the rapid spin of my own ideas, can distract me from achieving things I say I want to accomplish. I also have a tendency to overcommit to doing lots of things that sound fun and exciting only to discover later that I’ve led myself down the garden path of overwhelm. Spending time on this helps me re-focus and re-engage with what matters, and helps me identify stuff I can let go of so that I don’t feel overburdened and overtired.
Regardless of your excitement level I can say with confidence that the time to engage in this type of deep thought work is not all of the time, nor is it when someone else tells you it should be happening.
Some people like doing this work close to their birthday, at the end of a fiscal year, or on January 1st, but for you that may not feel right.
Rather than tell you what day or season is best, here are my suggestions for timing cues to look for, that might represent a great place to jump into a process for setting yourself up for success.
When you find yourself with a couple of weeks of time that aren’t already booked solid
After a big vacation (Hey! Works for me!)
After a break-up or job loss
If you find yourself experiencing a dramatic life change of any kind (if its something intense, its good to prioritize grieving first)
When you get the sneaking suspicion that what you’re doing is no longer working for you and it’s time to try something else.
After you’ve celebrated achieving a huge goal you previously set for yourself, and have taken some time to rest and recuperate!
Do you do this?
Send me a note, or reply in the comments!
Are you a person who likes doing this kind of thing or do you avoid it?
If you enjoy taking inventory of your habits, values and goals, do you have a system you like or do you do it differently every time?
What’s the most exciting thing you’ve achieved… and did it stem from a process like the one I’ve described, or something else?
I just turned 50 so now is a great time...after the party! Haha