Michael Hyatt suggests that we have 5 choices after completing a review of our goals.
- Rejoice
- Recommit
- Revise
- Remove
- Replace
This is the beginning of a new month and I have learned that pausing for a quick After-Action-Review is a good investment of my time. I enjoy a solid habit of reviewing my month and setting goals for the new month. I do tend to skip over the celebration of what I have accomplished to focus on what I need to do next.
Last week I decided to work through Michael’s 5 choices as a part of my review and planning. It didn’t take long and again it was a good investment of my time and attention.
Rejoice
As I mentioned earlier, I usually skip this part – bad idea! Celebrating our wins is important, this is one way that we fuel our enthusiasm to keep going. Here is what I realized last week. I need to pause and celebrate all wins – especially the small ones. A series of small wins is generally what precedes the achievement of a goal. At first glance I didn’t have much to celebrate from last month.
I had 8 goals for growing GoalFirm.
- 2 goals I accomplished
- 3 goals I made progress
- 3 goals I didn’t work on
Pausing to consider Michael Hyatt’s suggestion to rejoice focused me on what I had accomplished. Those 3 goals that I worked on are well underway – that is worth a happy dance!
Recommit
This is about looking at our goals and recommitting to them. I focused on the 3 goals I didn’t work on last month. I answered the questions that Michael Hyatt suggests.
- What will I gain by accomplishing this goal?
- What will I lose if I don’t accomplish the goal?
- Do I need to change my strategies?
My conclusion – the goals are solid, and my strategies seem ok (remember I didn’t do anything). My thinking was not realistic when I added these goals to my list. Interestingly, they were the last goals I added, and it was because they really need to get done. Not a great reason to add them to the list when I did. I have recommitted to the goals.
Revise – Remove – Replace
When we are unable to recommit to the goal we have 2 choices, according to Hyatt. We can revise the goal or remove it. Revising a goal is not unusual – after all, when we create a goal it is based on our best thinking and knowledge that we possess at that time. As we learn more, a revision to our goal can be the best action.
The other option when we cannot recommit to a goal is to remove it. There are times when a goal may no longer be relevant or perhaps, we cannot get enthused about accomplishing it. There is no rule that says we are failures if we remove a goal – if it no longer makes sense get rid of it and focus on the goals that resonate.
Hyatt recommends creating a new goal to replace the one that we have removed. Although this time I did not remove a goal I have found that creating a new goal in place of one I have deleted helps to keep me focused on my “why” behind the goals. Goals may be revised or removed along the journey – after all we learn as we go.
My Conclusion
Using this framework to guide my thinking when planning the goals for this month only took a few minutes and my goals for this month are solid (based on my knowledge today).
