31 Jan Your weekly review is vital for achieving your goals
As the new year’s approaching and people are well looking into their New Years Resolutions I wanted to grab the opportunity to share some of my ideas, tips & tricks on doing a weekly review. I truly believe this is something doable to anyone and it can make a huge difference. However, a weekly review can be adopted at any time: the end of January or mid-June, the important thing for you is to get started!
I get it, you are looking for some changes in your life. We all are. As I wrote in my last article, when looking for changes, it’s not (only) motivation that will help you, it’s discipline. Summarised: motivation is a feeling, discipline is an action.
Why a weekly review?
What is the reason a number (or: most) of your goals do not get accomplished? Are these goals too ambitious? Is it a lack of motivation or do they fail because they are forgotten? I’m convinced that in most cases it’s actually the latter. And I would be lying if I would say this has never happened to me.
Setting goals is easy but sticking to them is much harder. Normally you don’t set a goal because it’s the most fun in the world do be doing X or sticking to Y. However, you feel that it could change your life for the better and therefore come up with these goals. However, when it’s coming down to working on them, you probably are much more likely to be scrolling your Instagram, go for a game of football or meet up with some of your mates. And that’s not surprising, as those are all things that have been in your system for years and years. These new goals haven’t and it’s not something to be ashamed of the build in a bit of a mnemonic (something that helps you remembering).
I believe a weekly review can help you in achieving your goals so let’s dig in on what it exactly is and how it can help you.
What is a weekly review?
What is the reason a number (or: most) of your goals do not get accomplished? Are these goals too ambitious? Is it a lack of motivation or do they fail because they are forgotten? I’m convinced that in most cases it’s actually the latter. And I would be lying if I would say this has never happened to me. A weekly review has helped me enormously in achieving my goals after all and I will explain you exactly why.
A weekly review is a structured way of how to to review your past week and look forward to the week that’s ahead of you. That’s it!
How a weekly review can help you in achieving your goals
By reviewing your week and looking forward to the one that’s coming, you force yourself to overthink your actions. And that’s exactly how the weekly review has helped me tremendously in achieving my goals. Years ago I would set intentions and goals to a new year (resolutions) but after some (little) time I would simply forget about them.
While now reviewing my week and setting some goals, I can simply align them with my overall goals for the year.
How to set up your weekly review?
So, a weekly review. Where to start and how to go about? I truly believe in setting this up in the way that suits you best. I will however share some of my experiences, which might help you.
Weekly review: the past week
Even though when starting off, there’s no past week to look at, we’ll just assume you’ve been doing the weekly review already for some time. After reading the part on the week ahead of you, things will become much clearer.
The 3 goals I set for myself I will go over and write down a comment (in my Google Doc). I find it very helpful to make comments as every now and then I’d like to look back at the goals (and read my feedback). The rather practical goals also get a comment attached, which normally will consist of a simple ‘done’ or a reason why it hasn’t fully happened.
Weekly review: the coming week
I will set 3 goals and 3 practical to-do’s. An example of what I could write down, noted SMART.
- Goal #1: read 3 times at least 45 minutes in The Power of Habit
- Goal #2: meditate every morning in the coming week for 10 minutes
- Goal #3: close off every day/night with briefly going over the schedule for the following day in order to have an idea of what’s coming at you
- To-do #1: extend my tourist visa in Colombia
- To-do #2: finish the article on Weekly Review
- To-do #3: work at least 1 day from a new co-work spot in town
My tips & tricks on a weekly review
- Pick a fixed moment:
- Keep it short:
- Buy a small whiteboard: this has been a gamechanger to me
No Comments