#1. Choose your guiding motto for the season
What feeling would you like to experience during the holiday season? Peace, joy, friendship, connection, celebration, creativity, sharing, understanding, excitement, wonder, adventure or something completely different. Let go of the expectations of others and set your own.
Use that motto to help you decide what you put on your plate (your schedule plate and your dinner plate). Take charge of your time for the next six weeks (and beyond) by deciding what you want to feel and experience.
#2. Rewrite your 2016 goals
Cross out any of the goals that no longer apply or fit. Check off the ones you clearly reached. Look at the remaining from a different perspective. Did you actually have control over the outcome?
One story that has shaped my goal setting is about an insurance salesperson who routinely outperformed. Each month the sales staff were asked to write their goals for the month on the board. Most wrote how much they'd sell. But this salesperson wrote how many calls he'd make that month or how many people he'd ask for a meeting. He realized the calls were in his control, but not the yeses. The appointment requests were in his control, but not the agreements to meet.
Rewrite the rest of your goals so that whatever action you take, whatever step you make, it's within your complete control. Now, which one would you like to focus on for the next six weeks? Let that be your 2016 goal.
#3. Set three goal levels
In the next six weeks, if things continue as normal, some days you're able to take the actions you need and other days, your time isn't your own, what could you achieve? That's your target 2016 goal.
If everything went your way, actions were easy, you had lots of energy and more time than ever, what could you achieve? That's your stretch goal.
If life threw you curve balls, got in your way, and everything was hard, what could you achieve? That's your baseline goal.
Here's an example from my 2016 goals:
Unhacked 2016 Goal: one article written, submitted, and published
Motto: Creative Fun
Hacked Goal: one article written and submitted (publishing is only within my control if I self-publish)
Three Levels of Action:
Baseline - identify one new place to submit an article
Target - write something every day (morning pages, journal, article, book, one sentence, newsletter, two paragraphs, blog, a five-minute speech, etc)
Stretch - write one 500-word article and submit it for publication
