Recently, I read a story on the Internet (so it must be true) about a bride-to-be who decided to have an over-the-top expensive wedding despite having a modest budget. In order to accomplish this, she told their family and friends that they would have to make a hefty financial contribution to the wedding or would not be invited. Naturally, most of her guests decided not to attend the wedding. As plans started falling through, her best friend/maid of honor suggested they rethink the wedding plans. Instead, the bride cut her out of her life. When her fiancé suggested throwing in the towel on the plans and getting married in Las Vegas, she broke up with him. In her dogged determination to achieve the wedding of her dreams, she lost people who cared about her and gained a scathing roasting from strangers the world over.
Before you cast the next stone, think about how many articles, podcasts, TED talks, books, and movies you’ve seen about not giving up on your goals and staying the course no matter the obstacles. Think about the cautionary tales of people who gave up right before they succeeded — the channel swimmer who quit just before she reached the shore or the miner digging for gold who stopped just inches away from finding the goldmine. I think we can agree our bride had determination. So, why didn’t she succeed?
I think it is because she was missing a key element — reflection. Last year, I did an activity with my team on goal setting that would have been helpful to our bride. I talked about re-examining our goals to see if we should keep, tweak, or replace them. I used the perspective of the effect the pandemic might have on our goals. I gave the example of having a goal to move into a big, corner office at work and needing to replace that goal since we now work from home. Another example was having a goal of running a particular marathon and needing to tweak that because some marathons got cancelled last year. You could keep the goal of running the same distance but tweak it to be a virtual marathon.
As you set your goals for 2022, consider doing some reflection on which goals you should keep, tweak, or replace. One tool that can be helpful for reflecting on your professional goals is the Omnia Professional Development report. It provides powerful insight into your current strengths and weaknesses. You may identify a strength that you could lean into or a weakness that you can spend time developing. Whether you decide to keep, tweak, or replace your goals, I wish you much success in 2022!
