How to stay on track to accomplish your 2019 goals

Posted May 22, 2019

It’s time to assess those goals

Remember when 2018 was coming to a close? You were thrilled about the new year ahead. Fully living in the “new year; new me” theme, you made a list of your top goals for 2019. You broke them down into pieces and vowed to tackle them incrementally. You remember!

Well, guess what: It’s almost halftime. With the end of the second quarter creeping up on you, it’s time to assess your progress. Whether your goals are personal or professional, here’s how to recommit to the ones you didn’t complete and celebrate the ones you did.

First, assess your progress.

So maybe you missed a milestone in route to your final goal. Finding out you’re human isn’t a punishable offense; it’s an opportunity. Recognize your limits or imperfections and continuously come up with new ways to improve. Beating yourself up over hiccups will only harm your morale and motivation. If you’re going to meet your goals, you have to keep those two factors intact. Learn to be your own best friend.

But what if you did meet your milestones? Consider that you may either be on the perfect track and therefore shouldn’t change a thing, or that you may not have challenged yourself enough to begin with. If you felt like hitting that milestone was a breeze, try setting the bar higher for Q3. If it felt like a challenge, keep moving forward.

Make a new plan.

Now that you know how far you are from reaching your goals, identify what you need to do to achieve the rest. In other words, you can break down the goal into chunks and allocate blocks of time to each chunk. This step is about re-evaluating how you’re allocating your resources in a way that will support you reaching your goals. Remember that things come up and may change your established plans of action.

Remain accountable to your new personal deadlines.

If you need help sticking to your goals, you can call on an accountability partner or even start a support group. You’ve already agreed to be your own best friend; now you can start adding to the clique. Your accountability partner(s) must know your goals, must know your plan and maybe even have some of their own. Make time to check in with one another and, most importantly, to cheer one another on. Cheerleaders exist to inspire a positive attitude when things are looking grim, that’s exactly what you need in your circle. Pick the people who won’t make you feel guilty about missing a goal but instead who will offer positive and realistic solutions to any lapses you have on the way to attaining your goals.

In the context of goal re-setting, guilt and worry are useless emotions because they aren’t guaranteed to be converted to helpful actions. The key to reaching your annual goals after assessing your progress in the first half of the year, is in fact positive action. If you regularly evaluate your development, adjust your behavior as a result and maintain a positive attitude toward yourself, you’ll be on the right track to achieve your goals. Allow yourself to fail while encouraging yourself to adapt. Check in again with yourself on your goals after the third quarter and repeat this process.

Mballa Mendouga, Communications – Manager, Corporation Social Responsibility & Campaigns, Association of International Certified Professional Accountants

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