How Clear are Your Goals For Next Year?

Fun fact for the day: There are only five more Wednesdays left in 2019! That’s right, before we know it we’ll be flipping the calendar over to the new year (and decade). As we come towards a close of this year, it’s an appropriate time to start reflecting on the goals for next year. We want those goals to be as clear as possible. Hopefully they’re 20/20. I couldn’t resist that pun.

But really, clarity in our goals allows us to hone in on the specific actions we need to take to make it a reality. “I want to be healthy” is incredibly vague, while “I want to get down to a certain weight by May” is locked in and focused.

The second health goal I gave allows you to hit short-range goals, come up with nutrition and exercise plans, and give yourself the best chance for success. You can also identify what obstacles might be in the way (i.e. chronic low back pain preventing you from exercising) and find solutions to those obstacles (seeing us!).

The motivational speaker Zig Ziglar used to teach goal setting through the metaphor of what he calls “the wheel of life”. The wheel has spokes that represent different part of our lives to strive towards success. Those spokes are 1. Career 2. Financial 3. Spiritual 4. Physical 5. Intellectual 6. Family 7. Social.

If you want to make 2020 a record-setting year, that will be much more likely if it isn’t by accident. If you start setting goals to hit within a certain timeframe, you’ll be much more likely to hit them!

– Dr. Scott Minton