The year 2016 has come and gone. There were many things that I hoped to do in that year. Some of them I did, and some others I did not. Some I completed to a level, and while I had almost no chance at others. So before I set my goals for 2017, let us take a look back at my goals for 2016, and review how well I did. Ready?
First of all, let me summarize my performance. There were eight categories of things that I wanted to do (click here to view my goals for 2016):
- Focus for the year – The major things I wanted to focus on all year round
- Acts of Random Kindness – Little ways to make the world a kinder place
- Target goals – Goals with a specific, measurable target
- One-time goals – Things I had to do once (like a bucket list)
- Ongoing goals – Things that had no targets (or ways to measure), like a habit or lifestyle
- Learning goals – Things I wanted to learn
- Purchase goals – Things I wanted to buy
- Optional stuff – Things that were optional in 2016
If you do not want to read through the analysis, you can just click to read the Lessons Learned from all this.
There were a total of ninety-three things I wanted to do, spread across eight categories of goals. Now let us see the progress I made with each category.
Optional stuff – 0%
I did nothing from the optional stuff list of goals. Keep reading to understand why.
Purchase goals – 0%
I was not able to make any buys from this list either.
My year was not exactly financially favorable for me. So I spent most of my money on actual needs and relevant items. There was not much left for optional purchases that did not meet any real need in my life.
Learning goals – 40%
I managed to do two out of the five goals I had on this list.
I never actually made time out to learn the other things on the list. Like some of my goals for 2016, I had systems on how I would achieve them. But for some reason, I did not create a system or schedule for when and how to learn these things. Even so, I did attempt learning how to whistle with my fingers and tongue. I will have to learn that some other time.
Ongoing goals – 71%
Although I was consistent with five out of the seven goals on this list, I did have to drop two of the goals.
I have so many accounts on the internet that it would be difficult to change all my passwords quarterly. While it was a good idea, it was not a workable one. I obviously did not think it through before making this a goal.
I have a rule for keeping friends on my Facebook profile, but I do not apply that same rule to my LinkedIn profile. As a result, I cannot genuinely endorse all my LinkedIn contacts because I did not know most of them. I felt that endorsing my contacts was a good way to strengthen the existing relationship I had with them. I felt it was a good way to add value first, and build meaningful relationships with people. If I am to do this goal, then I need to first have a personal relationship with all my LinkedIn contacts. That way, I will know more about them and their professions, and what to endorse them for. It also means that I have to focus on the quality of my LinkedIn contacts, over the quantity.
One-time goals – 63%
One reason I did not do more off this list was because I did not remind myself of it often enough. If I checked the list often, I would have done more because there are always opportunities.
Target goals – 55%
I had to drop two out of the eleven goals in this category. I also had to drop the goal to read at least eight hundred articles last year. I could no longer keep track of what I was reading, so I do not know if I actually reached that goal or not. I reached 20% of this goal.
I also could not answer up to four hundred questions on Quora (I reached 11% of this goal). I started spending that time on other things and got distracted. Another goal I had to drop was to make one hand craft each month. Someone suggested this goal for me, but I could not keep up with it (I reached 17% of this goal). Finally, I was only able to reach 8% of my goal to recommend at least one of my LinkedIn contacts each month. This was difficult because I realized that I did not know my LinkedIn contacts. I had no prior experience with most of them for me to write a recommendation for. It was not doable, as I already explained here before.
Acts of Random Kindness – 38%
I did not accomplish more from this list for the same reasons why I did not accomplish the some of the one-time goals… I did not check the list often. As a result, I missed out on opportunities to do more acts of kindness from that list.
Focus for the year – 33%
For DeQeo Consulting, I had three goals, one of which I dropped. I later realized that I could not fulfill that promise to my customers. I also did not consider the goal before setting it. Unfortunately, it was later in the year I realized that I made a promise I could not keep… to share one scholarship offer for Nigerians each week(I reached 13% of this goal). And as for my goal to register fifty students last year, I only managed to reach 6% of that goal due to lack of an action plan. I set a goal but failed to create a system and schedule on how to complete it.
I also wanted to launch the Nigerian Blog Reviews project I had started with a friend in the year 2015. But I had to drop the goal because my partner pulled out, leaving all the workload on me. And then I got distracted with life and other responsibilities. After a few months, it started to feel like a lost cause, so I dropped it. I could not launch and I could not pass my own readiness test (I reached 40% of this goal).
Finally, I made it a goal last year to help at least ten people reach their goals for the year 2016. But it turns out that people either do not want (or need) help or they do not think they need help. It is either that, or they do not want help from me. So it was difficult to get people who wanted my help, even when I asked. Still, I was able to reach 40% of this goal.
Putting it all together – 38%
When I put them all together, I was able to reach 38% of my goals for the year 2016. When considering the numbers alone, I not do so well.
I did not even reach up to 50% of my goals for the year. Even so, that does not mean I had a bad year. It only means that I did not move far towards the things I set out to achieve. Even so, I did achieve other things that I did not plan to. For instance, I learned how to make shawarma. I also had positive impact on a good number of people on social media. So what lessons did I learn from all this?
Lessons Learned
What I got Right
I got a few things right about myself and setting my goals. I used January to think well and hard about what I wanted, and what I wanted to focus on. I gave myself three main focuses for the year so that I do no spread myself and scatter my energy. In the past, I have tried to do too many things at the same time that I end up doing a poor job. Multitasking does kill productivity, no matter how good you think you are at it.
And as I prepared my goals, I also had to mentally prepare myself for the price I was going to have to pay, to reach my goals. Success has a price, and the currency is diligence. It is easy enough to wish for a good body, but more difficult to put the work in. Most people desire success in one aspect of life or the other, but are not will and ready to do the work. Hence, their dreams remain as dreams (rather than goals) and so they seldom become reality.
Another thing I got right was that I was realistic in setting most of my goals. For instance, I wanted to do a hundred push-ups every day, and that would mean 36,600 push-ups at the end of the year. To be realistic, certain things could prevent me from doing push-ups every single day. So with that in mind, I adjusted my target to ten thousand push-ups by the end of the year.
I created a system, which included a schedule, on how to reach my goals. For instance, I scheduled fifty push-ups in the morning and fifty in the night. After my muscles had adjusted to this routine, I shifted to a hundred push-ups in the morning. Sometimes I did another hundred at night too. By December, I was doing a hundred and twenty push-ups per day. Or consider my schedule to write a blog post on Saturdays between 10 AM and noon.
I also adjusted my goals to make them more fun to do. Like, I adjusted a hundred push-ups per day to 10,00 push-ups in twelve months. Answering one question a day on Quora became eight hundred questions by the end of the year. This may not be fun for you, but it was for me. It allowed me room to mess up, make excused or be lazy, and still reach my goal. Like there were times when it was not possible to do push-ups, like when I was sick.
What I Got Wrong
I also got couple of things I got wrong. One was, not completely understanding the prerequisites for reaching some of my goals. I did not take the time to understand what I needed, or the position I had to be in, before I could reach some goals. So the lesson here is to get to know as much as possible about what it takes to reach a goal. For instance, to write a LinkedIn recommendation, I should have worked the contact in the past. Based on that experience, I can then write a recommendation for the contact. If I had considered this, I would have realized that I had no experience with most of my LinkedIn contacts.
A better goal would have been to focus on the quality of my contacts, over the quantity. Can you imagine if I spent last year increasing the quality of my LinkedIn contacts? I would have been able to write fifty-two LinkedIn recommendations this year. Imagine that!
Another thing I failed to do was remind myself of my goals often. It would be ideal to do a weekly (or at most monthly) reviews of how well I was doing generally and with each goal. Having your goals constantly in view helps you fulfill them faster than when they are not because you tend to forget… out of sight, out of mind.
I also failed to create an action plan for each of the goals. I am a systems person. I love systems because it makes life easy. I had a system to reach some goals and make them fun. But I did not do this for all my goals. There was no action plan or schedule for all my goals. And so the goals without a plan were more difficult to reach.
So that was how I did with my goals for the year 2016.
Now it is your turn… How did you do with your own goals for 2016? What do you think about my review? Do you have any tips for me before I set my goals for 2017? Please share your thoughts with me in the comments section below. Thanks