This is the most important thing I do every year
This is the most important thing I do every year.
It’s not just thinking about goals.
It’s not just about thinking one’s purpose.
It’s about everything.
What did I do this year?
What did I accomplish - and fail at?
What are the biggest life lessons from this year
Why am I doing what am I doing?
Is this the direction I want to head to?
In today’s Letter, I’ll tell you:
1) how do I recap my year, what are its benefits
2) how to prepare to crush the next year - and
3) the best way to set goals for 2024.
Let’s begin, my friends.
Why recapping your year matters
Do you feel time is flowing by fast?
At times, I feel so.
But you might feel it even more than I do.
Why do we need help remembering what we did this past year?
Because… our brain ”deletes” the repetitive stuff:
There’s no point remembering every single time you drove to work.
There’s no point remembering every single time you cooked the same meal…
But there’s a point in remembering new things you experienced every single time.
If you feel you did close to nothing this year, it might be that you just didn’t experience new things enough.
But even if you experience a lot of new things, they aren’t actively on your mind.
Spaced repetition is something that helps us remember better.
It’s what you should do whatever you’re trying to learn - or remember.
So - also do it when you want to remember your past year.
You’ll appreciate your life more - and see the gifts you got to experience.
But what other benefits does this have?
You get to discover lessons. You can see where to improve for the upcoming year.
Next up, I’ll tell you what I do to recap my year. Then we’ll get into goal setting.
Recapping your year
First, when I recap my year, I'll go through what am I grateful for this year:
1) I write people's names I'm grateful for
2) the experiences
3) the accomplishments
4) food I've tried
5) and game changers.
Next up, what happened this year?
I write down overall what happened this year. The biggest few things.
And then, I go through my calendar and to-do lists month by month to remind of myself what did I do and what happened.
I write that stuff down.
The cool stuff I discovered this year
For me, it includes:
1) Books
2) Podcasts
3) YouTube channels and/or videos
4) Health-related stuff
5) Courses... and so on.
Life lessons
I'll write what were the biggest lessons I realized from this year.
Such as: Fame is not something you want to aim for. And never take your luggage to a networking event.
Reflective questions
What were the “difficult” things this year? Any challenges?
When have you felt proud of yourself in 2023? What were you doing?
What did you feel guilty for in 2023?
And so on.
I ask questions to figure out how can I have a better year next year.
Then... comes the goal-setting.
The correct way to set goals
First of all, write them down.
This is a simple thing, but so many people don't do this.
When you write it down, you get clarity. And you need that to hit the goal.
Set a deadline. Then it becomes real.
But to achieve it, you must take steps to achieve that goal.
Let me introduce you to OKRs - objectives and key results.
OKRs
This is what many massive companies and entrepreneurs use to plan their goals.
So - objectives are our goals.
Objectives on their own don't have any action steps. But they have the destination.
Key results bring the steps.
Have a maximum of 5 steps to achieve your goal. Otherwise, it can get a little too complicated - and your focus will be spread too thin.
Doing these key results should make you achieve the goal.
If you do them, but don't get to the goal, you didn't set good enough key results in the first place.
Now do this with every goal.
But don't have more than 5 goals at the same time.
I have my annual goals, such as reaching 300k followers on Instagram (which I know to be unrealistic, I know.)
But I have goals for every quarter. And there are 5 goals per quarter.
The less you have, the better.
If you focus on catching too many rabbits, you'll get none, as the saying goes.
You must decide what to give up. And that's a hard decision I need to make as well - as I'm doing too many things right now.
To recap:
Set 3-5 goals per quarter.
Set 3-5 key results per goal.
Keep track of your goals
Have meetings with yourself. Weekly? Montly? Or daily? The more the better.
See are you actually moving towards your goals? Is there something you need to adjust? You only can find answers to these once you have reflected.
But... why?
Why do you want to achieve that goal?
If you don't know this... you'll not have enough motivation to achieve the goal.
So, this is the most important step of all this.
To learn more about the formula to find your true why - click here.
What would stop me?
Ask yourself - what are my top 3 reasons I'd fail at achieving this goal?
By asking this question you'll find the weak points. Only after you're aware of them, you can make changes to not fail because of those things.
Who can help me?
There's a fantastic book called Who Not How. The message of the book is to not think about how can you achieve something. Rather ask yourself, who can help me to achieve this? Or who can achieve it for me?
Finding people to help on your journey creates a massive difference.
Recap:
1st reflect on the past year. See what you will learn from it - and about yourself. Use them to guide your decisions on your goals.
Have:
3-5 goals per quarter.
3-5 key results per goal.
Top 3 reasons why you could fail at achieving the goal
Know why you're wanting to achieve that goal
A list of people who can help you
And... have regular meetings with yourself to see the progress - and to possibly adjust your actions.
I hope this helps you.
Write goals down and recap your year. I guarantee you won't regret it.
To some of you who didn't write goals down this year, might've been the reason you didn't achieve them.
Don't repeat that mistake. :)
If you want to learn even more about this, I recommend the book called Measure What Matters by John Doerr.
And this free YouTube video by Ali Abdaal from whom I got lots of information to figure out my own goal-setting system. Also, the reflective questions are from Abdaal's own video. You can find more reflective questions there - or just ask Chat GPT for them, lol.
Thank you for all the support this year. You're awesome. It means the world to me you're reading my Letters. Truly.
I hope your 2023 was great. But I hope 2024 is going to be even more awesome.
Thank you for being on this journey together with me. I'm super grateful to you.
If you haven't subscribed to these Letters yet, you can do so here. Don't miss 2024 Letters.
See you in 2024,
Hugo
