We are now in the season of goals evaluation. Measurement is on the way for everyone. No matter your role, the time is coming to report on your long-forgotten goal for the year you have achieved. And at the same time, your direct manager will have to tell you how they see you in the next year. Of course, the best thing that can happen to you is to get that pay rise everyone wants or put yourself into another challenging circle to develop for a new role. But, there is also one more opportunity – you do not like what you hear and start searching for the next dream place for yourself outside of your current employer.
Is that situation familiar to you?
According to an HBR article published in 2021, you are in the same boat as almost sixty percent of the employees they have interviewed. In addition, people often share the inadequacy of the annual goal setting and how the feedback they get is outdated and does not serve anything good for them.
With that in mind, is there any other solution that may help you advance? Did you ask yourself what you could have done differently to feel more accomplished and less stressed at the end of the year?
If the answer is NO, do not worry. You are not alone in this. But the reason why you read the current post is that you want to see this change. Congratulation on that!
A powerful tool to make that change happen and stick in time is to change your view of the goals you set. Years ago, when I was part of a large FMCG company, I had the opportunity to learn what to do by myself.
But what are the seasonal goals? Well, they are what you heard. Goals that are actual for a particular season. The term comes from the need to set short-term goals to make your achievements more impactful. With a list of short goals, you may become more focused and invest energy and resources in things that create immediate impact. Seasonal goals are set in a seeable horizon to help you better structure your plan for meaningful achievements.
Why do you need these seasonal goals? – The answer here is simple – To allow yourself to achieve better results that make you and others feel comfortable.
With seasonal goals set, the work and results you achieve do not drain your powers but canalize them into a specific direction.
While we live in a society and world where everyone is demanding something from us in a different form, seasonal goals help you to give everyone what they need within the timeframes you have agreed on with them and without putting too much pressure on you.
You need to set seasonal goals to manage better the option for burnout. No matter what techniques we use, there is some time in our lives when we all feel drained, unwilling to participate in anything, and just to quit everything. That time is when you experience burnout. It often happens when you overload yourself with different tasks and responsibilities and, at a particular moment, start feeling like you are drowning. To manage the environment better and save yourself from burnout – seasonal goals may help significantly. With them in place, you combine the power of achieving more by planning and executing in small steps. With that approach, the level of flexibility increases while stressing decreases.
Here are some tips on how to set your seasonal goals:
Start with a positive statement
To achieve a goal, you must be sure that the result will lead to something positive. People try to avoid and minimize negative things and maximize what is positive. Starting positively sets your mind for achievement.
Be precise
Setting a goal does not mean only writing the description of what you expect as a result at the end. It would help if you chose the deadline for the objective precisely, what are the most valuable outcomes from achieving it(not more than 3), and also include some space for flexibility along the achievement. After all, things you do not have an idea for now, can show up and affect the achievement of goals.
Prioritize your goals
A common mistake, not only with seasonal goals, is that the person setting them wants them all achieved by the deadline. Prioritizing goals can help a lot because it helps people focus on the most critical impact in the next planned period and invest most of the resources they have in achieving it.
Make a note of them in present tense
Have you experienced that delay, caused by the fact that you always thought you would have enough time to finish a task, to realize that your time was already up? If goals sound like something that has to be achieved in the future, they create a false sense of stability and comfort. But if you write them in the present tense, they sound like something that is actual now and may need your full attention in this particular moment.
Keep them small and realistic
When you start planning big, you are mostly planning general conceptions. But when you move to design small things, you focus on essential details from the big picture. Preparing for each element and allocating the adequate amount of resources is a prerequisite for achieving goals and delivering sustainable results in time
Think seasonal goals trough
When getting the goals, most people start working on them. There is a saying for hard work “Work smarter, not harder.” With that in mind, the seasonal goals list needs your attention. The more you think about how to achieve them , the lesser the effort will be.
Give yourself a small reward
This last step is often missing from people’s agendas. Instead, they start working on big goals to reward themselves at the end of the process. But people’s mind is not structured in that way. The more often the person gets small rewards for steps achieved, the more productive and focused they become. Assuring the tips will be frequent can help accomplish the seasonal goals more accessible and with less stress.
IN CONCLUSION:
Getting ahead in work and life is a modern threat to everyone. With that in mind, people often overwork themselves and sometimes even overburn themselves. However, planning and achieving in small steps and prioritizing for shorter periods can save time and increase results. Seasonal goals, in that matter, are a tool that people need to look at closely to improve themselves and deliver more significant results within time without losing their mojo.
The Human place 