- Alrighty pals, it's the end of the year
and end of the year for me is generally goal setting time.
I know that New Year's resolutions are seen as very cheesy
and that they're notoriously
things that you don't stick to.
But I love the concept of a fresh start.
I just like goal setting, okay?
I'm nerdy like that.
The end of the year is a really good time to reflect
on the year that's been and look forward at what you
want to get out of the next year because if you don't
take stock of your life and maybe think about what's missing
or what you'd like to change, then you're not going to do
anything to change it or add in the
things that you're missing.
No obviously, you can do this of the year,
you don't have to wait until the very end of it to do this.
But, I don't know, it's just a good time,
fresh start, new calendar year.
Let's have a think about some goals.
I think I would say that I'm fairly ambitious
when it comes to goals.
Maybe not so much in the level of the goal itself,
but in the number of goals that I set.
And that is definitely something I want to change.
Last year I did a video about goals for 2017.
I can't remember what it was called,
but I'll link it on the card, when I find it.
I also wrote them down in my goal journal.
Looking at the list,
I achieved two,
maybe we'll say 2 1/2 of the goals that I set.
I made plans to create a workshop,
to start writing a course,
to do like a monthly series of design.
I don't know, it was a lot of things.
The only ones that I achieved from the list were
learning to code, that definitely happened.
I released my line of screen printed posters,
they're available in my store.
I'll link to that down below in the description.
And I had "release a digital product" on here,
I haven't really done this in the sense
that I meant it when I wrote the goal.
I was meaning to make a font or something,
which I'm in the process of, but it's nowhere near done.
But I did release our design life community.
That's technically a digital product that you can sign up
to pay monthly for it.
So, yeah, I'm going to call that one half done.
So out of seven goals, 2 1/2 doesn't sound great, does it?
It doesn't sound like I achieved
what I set out to this year.
And so you could consider that to be a failure.
But I do not.
I've learned a lot of goals this year.
I mentioned in my chatty update I did
at the start of December,
that I'd been going through the focus course
by Shawn Blanc this year.
And that has an amazing section on goal setting and
really taking stock of your life and
figuring out what you want from it.
In a bunch of different categories like finances,
your vocation and your relationships, etc.
I learned a lot through that about setting goals.
I think that the goals that I set for last year were wrong.
They were very specific things and I think I was setting
myself up to fail with them almost by
naming so many very specific things.
Because, if you say, for example, that,
and this is one of my goals,
that you want to release an "apparel design workshop".
When you don't do that specific thing,
when you don't create an "apparel design workshop",
that means that you've failed your goal.
Whereas, really the sentiment behind that goal was that
I wanted to have some more formal way of teaching.
I wanted to be able to put a class together,
almost like a mini-curriculum and go through and teach
something a little more formally than
I do in my YouTube videos.
And, while I didn't achieve that either,
that is generally a better goal because it's more open-ended
and it means I can achieve it in lots of different ways.
Whichever way I decide it's going to work the best.
I'm going to be honest with you at this point and
say that I'm not 100% sure what point
I'm trying to make in this video.
I just wanted to sit down and talk to you about goals.
I do think that it's really important to have them.
I think it's really important to know
what you're aiming for.
But, what I've learned is that instead of
aiming for a very specific thing, you should aim for...
to have a certain skill or a
state of being that you want to be in.
That's not to say that you can't have
very specific things that you want to achieve.
But I just think that it's better to
have those be more in the short-term.
And I also think in those cases of
setting very specific goals,
instead of having them all at one time,
like I had 7 at one time that were my "goals" for the year.
It should be a list that you work down.
You achieve one, then you re-evaluate your list,
see if you still want to do the rest and
choose the next one to aim for so that you're
putting your focus into one thing at once,
of those very specific projects that you want to complete.
I do think that when getting specific with goals it's
important when it's like a smaller goals that's
going to lead you to a bigger one.
For examples, on of my goals for life in general,
is to own a couple of properties.
I want to have a house that I live in and then something
that I rent out and I can get money
from tenants in that way.
So to work towards that in 2018,
one of my goals is to double what's in my savings account.
Because, you need a deposit and
that is a very specific goal,
but it's working towards a bigger one.
It's like a stepping stone along the way.
So, I think specificity makes sense here.
Having that goal, I'll keep it in mind
throughout the year, hopefully,
and it'll encourage me to put more into my savings account.
I would like to know if you're the type of person who
sets new year's resolutions or
I don't really like to think of them that way,
I think of them as goals or things that
I want to achieve in the next year.
Okay, here's what we're going to do.
First, I want you to think about
what you want out of life in general.
Where do you want to end up in life?
What do you want to be doing?
What do you want to have?
What do you want your relationships to be like?
Think about the bigger picture there.
And then think about what you could do
to work towards those things in 2018.
You do have to be realistic about what can
be achieved in a year and what you can achieve
from the position that you are in now.
But, I think that there's always ways to progress.
There's always ways you can do something to move forward.
Even if it's only a tiny bit.
Any movement is good movement.
So, yeah, that is your homework from this video,
is to think about what you want in life
and then to think about a goal or a couple of goals
you could set for 2018 to get you there.
Another one of mine,
that I don't really know how to define yet,
but I really want to connect with people,
in person, through speaking.
I love doing it through video.
But I just think that it would be fun to host workshops,
speaking conferences, that sort of thing.
So, I need to get a speaker page up on my site
and it's going to be maybe not so much
as a goal but a focus for the year.
I don't know, I'm coming around to thinking that
that's kind of the same thing.
But, I'll be on the look out for speaking
opportunities and things like that.
That'll be where my focus lies.
So, I want you to think bigger with your goals and pair
it down as much as you need to into
something that's achievable.
I probably should have made this video into like,
"five tips for setting your new year's resolutions."
That would have been better for the search results,
but I really just enjoy having a chat, you know?
I hope you enjoyed watching it as well.
Perhaps you've gotten something out of it.
I'd love to hear, like I said, about your approach to goals.
I really just want to encourage you
to think bigger with them.
It's good to aim high, but it's also really good
to set goals in a way that means,
that even if you don't achieve it,
you're going to be in a better position.
2017, for the world in general, has just felt like,
pardon my language, a shit show.
In my personal life, it's been a pretty great one.
But, obviously I'm a part of the world.
All of that has affected me too.
I really hope that 2018 is a good year for you and
I believe a lot in mindset and I think that if you approach
with positivity and hope and high ambitions
then it's going to turn out great.
Thank you for watching this video.
For this ramble, I guess.
I don't really even know if you can call it a video.
Like I said, goals is just something that
I love to talk about and so I just wanted to share my
thoughts on them however confusing this may have been.
But thank you and and I'd love to hear about your goals.
Your thoughts on goals, like I said,
down below in the comments.
Give this video a thumbs up if you enjoyed it.
And I will see you in 2018!