Re-creating My 2020 Vision

Well, that didn’t go quite as planned…

In November last year, I wrote a post about how much I was creating my goals for 2020. Reading the first few lines of that post takes me back to a time when things were much simpler: "I have to say, I've never looked so forward to a new year.”

Back then, I was looking forward to workshops in December and January: “Vision 2020” was to help people make real and achievable goals for 2020.

Then things got really weird really fast.

The virus disrupted everything. We went into lockdown and only met virtually for months. We had riots and protesting around the world against racial injustice and police brutality. Epidemiology became political.

It’s been confusing, stressful, and painful and we’ve all had to change our carefully laid plans for 2020.

How many of us are doing today what we thought 6 months ago we’d be doing today?

In “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” Stephen Covey talks about mental maps and the need to recognize that our internal mental maps are not reality - the map is not the territory. With a real map, if you go to one city and with a map from a different city, you’re going to get lost very quickly. Similarly, when our internal mental maps don’t match the outside world, we also get confused, anxious, and upset.

That’s just what happened back in March: the outside world stopped looking like what we expected. The territory had changed and we were still holding onto the same mental maps. Confusion and anxiety ensued.

When this happens, the first thing you have to do is understand you arrived with the wrong map - accept that you’re lost. Then start to develop new strategies for getting around and figuring things out.

In a video I made on March 30th, I talked about about how the world has changed because of Covid, how we have to re-adjust our mental maps, and how that informed me about how to think about my 2020 goals. If I kept staring at the old goals I’d created at the end of 2019, I was going to end each day in despair.

I had to let go of what I had planned before and start creating something new or re-adjust to the new world I was living in.

For me, September, like spring, is a time for renewal. I was one of the weird kids that loved going back to school in September. I loved having my new school supplies and new clothes and wanted to see my friends again. That was the end of the summer: coming back from vacation, buying new stuff for school, and heading off to catch the school bus a few days later. It gave me whole bunches of new energy.

I still feel that feeling and energy when the clear blue skies and crisp cool air of September arrive. That’s why I’m taking this time now at the end of summer as an opportunity to review, renew, and re-create my goals for 2020.

In my November post, I covered 3 fundamental areas to consider in this process (see there for details):

1. Purpose - something that inspires you every time you read it that helps you get back on track when your focus has been lost.
   
   Has the purpose of what you’re doing changed?
   Are you still engaged with your purpose powerfully?
   Are you serving your customers in some new way that is not covered by how you defined your purpose before?
   
   Now is a good time to review the purpose and mission for you and your company and revise it based on what you have learned or how you have changed in the meantime.
   

2. Completion - we are in a huge transition and things are not done yet. Despite that, it is a great time to do completion: What happened? What worked and didn’t? What’s incomplete that you want to complete? This is an exercise we spend good focused time on in my workshops and in my coaching. It brings you into the present moment with new power and energy.
   

3. Futurability - did your previous goals fit the framework? When you create the new goals for the rest of the year, make sure yours do.

My 2020 Goals

Let’s review the goals I’d created back in December:

1. Earn X by end of the year (a specific amount of money)

2. Complete level 4 of Pathways (Toastmasters) by end of November (required 7 speeches)

3. German B2 certificate by end of November (this is a difficult level to achieve - have gotten B1 before).

4. Healthy weight maintained below a certain level. Exercising minimum 4 days/week. Running two ½ marathon with one sub-2-hour time by end of September.

5. 100% self-care checklist for minimum of 30 days in a row at some point during the year.

How’ve I done so far?

Let’s look at how things have gone toward these goals in 2020:

1. My business was impacted by the lockdown and restrictions due to Covid-19, so my income goal most likely won't be reached this year. What I took on during that time was some additional training and courses in coaching. I expect these to have a big impact on my business in 2021. Considering the circumstances, I would be happy to achieve 1/2 this goal.

2. 6 speeches to go. It is reasonable to think I could do 4 before the end of November. 6 would be a stretch and would require a lot of focus on this task over the next few months.

3. I’ll start working toward my Swiss citizenship and this language goal was part of that. It is not clear if I need this certificate or something else and there are other goals there I need to look at. Needs review and update as I go through this process.

4. This goal has been reached minus the actual races. I won’t be joining any races this year due to Covid. I can do these on my own, however.

5. Working toward this. As I’ve been getting better at the self-care, I’ve discovered how hard this will be to achieve. I have set a high bar on my self-care.

Re-creating my top 5 goals for 2020:

1. Earn X/2 (1/2 of previous goal) by end of year.

2. Complete Level 3 of Pathways (4 speeches to go before the end of the year - targeting early 2021 to finish Level 4).

3. Apply for Swiss citizenship by end of year. (Details TBD).

4. Healthy weight maintained below a certain level (same as before). Exercising 6 days/week. Run 10k 2x/month. Run 20k 2x before the end of the year. No actual races due to Covid. (this is an increase of previous goal minus the actual races).

5. 100% self-care checklist for minimum of 2 weeks in a row (streak reduced by 1/2).

There are 4 months left in the year. This is not an easy set of goals to achieve. They are challenging and inspiring me and will feel like a real accomplishment when completed.

I’m sharing this here now with you because it is part of the Futurability framework. I’m now accountable to you and I’ll report back to you each month how this is progressing.

The question for you now is what do you want to create in 2020? There is still time to re-create real and achievable goals for 2020. Would you share those with the us here?

Let me know how I can help you with that.

If you would like some guidance on setting goals and doing completion, please get in touch.

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