Taking stock of your goals or accomplishments for the past year, helps you to understand if you have spent the year treading water, or if you have spent your effort and time as you had every intention to do last New Years Day.

I applaud those of you who set out to reach your goals and achieved them.  That in itself is quite an accomplishment. But for those who, year after year, set lofty goals, with every good intention of reaching them this time – yet, by the end of each year have, again fallen shy of those goals, there are several questions you can ask yourself to see why this happens:

1. Is this goal in line with my values?
2. Who did I set this goal for? Me? Others?
3. What would happen (or how would I feel) if I reached that goal?
4. What happens (or how do I feel) when I don’t reach that goal?
5. What got in my way of reaching it? – Do I set and miss this goal every year?
6. What is at stake if I don’t reach this goal?
7. Where will I (or the business, family, the world, my self-esteem) be in 2 years if I never reach this goal?

Whether these are business, personal, spiritual, philanthropic, or financial goals, they were important enough for you to set in the first place, how did their value drop, or is it that there was no accountability to hold you to it?

Taking a Real Look Knowing where you have been, and knowing how you got there, or at least where you got off track helps you avoid those pitfalls in the future. Now here is an excercise you can do for your goals from this past year.

1. Read through your goals from last year.
2. Find something for each goal, whether you achieved it or not, find something that you can be grateful for.  Make it positive.  If your goal was to grow your business by 10% and missed that goal, be grateful, for example, for the consistant clients that keep flocking to you, be grateful for that one client who can’t afford to buy products but does anyway.
3. Think of at least two things you did accomplish this year and write it on the list, and check it off!

This exercise helps you to be grateful for what you have accomplished.  You can do more if your mindset is Success-oriented instead of Failure-oriented.  What does this exercise tell you about the goals you have set in the past?  Often just noticing a pattern can help you change it.

Now that you have taken stock of your year, you are ready to begin thinking and planning and making achievable goals for next year!  Good luck!

If you need some help figuring out where to start, check out our Create a Life Plan page.  There are several options that might work very well to help you discover, plan and reach those goals!