Planning for when you don’t know what’s coming around the corner – The 4M’s for goal setting in uncertain times

 Is it worth goal setting in times of uncertainty?

 

The events of this last year or so have prompted me to reflect on how I plan and set goals. There were some days when I felt so unsure and powerless about the future. I couldn’t be certain of what I would be doing the following week. So, how could I feel confident in setting and reaching a longer term 12-week goal? But the thought of throwing out all of my goals felt too pessimistic. It left me feeling rudderless and without direction. I still needed something to act as an anchor of stability while also guiding me forward.

On reflection, I discovered that rather than having one SMART goal for a specific amount of time I needed to create ‘goals’ or guidance at four different levels. Consequently, I created the 4M planning framework to help me create structure in my day while giving me the flexibility and direction to work towards what I wanted in life and business.

The 4M’s for goal setting and planning are:

• Macro
• Micro
• Moment
• Mindset

We have the ability and power to affect change and transformation in our lives at any of these four points.

Macro Level

The Macro level of planning and goal setting is all about setting the big picture. This level creates the benchmark and guiding direction for the other 3 levels.

There are many different questions and approaches you can take to work this out for yourself or your business  For instance, by asking:

• What is your vision for your future?
• What would you like to achieve in your life?
• Where do you see yourself in 3-, 5- or 10-years’ time?
• What legacy do you want to leave behind?
• What do you want to be known for?
• What is your life’s purpose?
• What are your priorities in life?
• What do you value?

These types of questions help you decide the overall direction you want to take in your life. You don’t need to answer all of them. Just pick one that appeals to you and feels easy to answer. If you’re visually inclined, you could create a vision board and then use those pictures to articulate your overall vision statement. The trick is to make your macro goal statement broad enough so that you can be flexible in how you achieve it, while keeping it it meaningful and personalised to you.

Knowing your Macro Level goal also helps with decision making or when picking between different opportunities. Compare your options against your big picture vision or goal to see how they align. The Macro Level gives you an easy way to keep you on course towards the life you want.

Micro Level

The Micro planning level translates the bigger picture into your everyday habits, behaviours and practices.

• What habit or behaviour could help you to move towards your bigger vision?
• How could you approach your day so that it’s consistent with your values or bigger picture?
• How do you define that you’ve had a ‘good’ day and what can you do to support that?
• Does your weekly schedule or planner reflect your bigger picture goal?

When making changes to your day, it’s important that you don’t bite off more than you can chew by committing to do too many things all at once. You may end up feeling overwhelmed, give up and do nothing.

Instead, establish your current baseline. Take your overarching Macro Level goal and work out what things you are already doing everyday (or regularly each week) that support this goal. For instance, if one of your overall Macro Level goals is to feel fit and healthy, then you can already count things such as brushing your teeth, drinking at least one glass of water each day, having fruit and vegetables in your diet and doing incidental exercise (no doubt there’s more you could add).

Next, pick one habit and behaviour you’re most interested in and either modify the amount of something you’re doing already (e.g. drinking 1 extra glass of water per day) or you add in something completely new (e.g. adding in a daily run or walk). Another hint to changing habits, it’s always easier to replace a behaviour with something else rather than just remove a behaviour by itself.

Once you get comfortable with performing this new behaviour then you can modify or add another behaviour to your day. Each time check that this new habit is in line with your desired Macro Level goal.

It’s also useful if you make the time for your Micro goals and habits in your daily schedule or calendar. This way you can see and reinforce your commitment towards your goals.

Moment Level

This level of goal setting distils our overall vision into a focus word or feeling. It helps us to do a quick check in, regroup and make adjustments as necessary in the present moment.

Reflect on your overall vision and see how you can express its main theme or ideas as one focus word or phrase. You can also ask yourself, ‘How do I want to feel in the future?’ In my Vision Boarding Workshops, I invite people to look at their completed vision board (a pictorial representation of their future) and describe how they feel while looking at it.

The trick is to find a word or phrase that strongly resonates with you without becoming generic or oversimplified like ‘happy’. I suggest being specific and even a little abstract in describing your desired feeling. My previous clients have come up with words for themselves like Home, Outside, Connection, Space, Open and Luxury. There is no wrong answer. The only criterion is that the word resonates and feels good to that individual.

Some of my clients couldn’t nail their focus word down to one particular word to describe their desired feeling. They resonated with a phrase, concept or idea instead. For instance, feeling like a strong and powerful Amazon Woman or like they do when they’re coasting on their bike. In these cases, I suggest writing down the whole phrase but then picking one word as a shortcut to trigger that feeling in their mind. Following on from the previous examples, their focus word could become Strong, Amazon or Bike. The main intent is to find a simple word that evokes and triggers that desired feeling.

Once you’ve determined your focus word, then you can apply it at any moment in your day when you want to create more focus or if you’re feeling unbalanced, overwhelmed or off-track. Pause for a moment. Take in one or more deep breaths to calm and centre yourself. Then recall your word and think about something that you can do to help you create that feeling for yourself or move towards that feeling.

Mindset Level

This level supports all of the other three levels within this planning framework. It relates to our mindset, beliefs and expectations around creating our desired future. We can have a grand and amazing vision for our future, but if somewhere deep down we don’t believe that it’s possible or we don’t deserve it then it reduces our chances of accomplishing it.

Changing our mindset is not something we can necessarily do overnight and is easier when we have the support of a health professional to do so.

In the context of this planning exercise, it is useful to be aware of our thought patterns, make small incremental changes and seek support as we need.  It’s useful to be aware of the thoughts we have whenever we get frustrated, face an obstacle in moving towards our goals or ‘fall off the wagon’ in creating new habits. Remember that our thoughts are just thoughts and are not us, and that we can change them. Make small modifications to the thoughts so that they feel ok, realistic and comfortable. Repeating affirmations that feel far-fetched and outrageous creates more internal conflict and is a more challenging way of going about mindset change. For instance, one could flip ‘I can’t do this’ to ‘I can do this’. Or soften it further into ‘I can take small steps towards my goals’ or ‘I am willing to find a way to do this.’

Look for softer and kinder ways of speaking to yourself throughout the day. If it feels tricky thinking about oneself, imagine your best friend in a similar situation and think about what you would say to them. Just pausing and taking a few deep breaths to regroup and calm down is helpful in supporting a positive mindset.

The 4M’s in action

During 2020, my focus word developed from a vision image of a heart (Macro Level) that I created at the start of the year (see image below). When things started to get rough, I brought the image of that heart to my mind.

As time passed and things felt more intense, I transformed that idea into ‘becoming a beacon of light’ (Moment Level). So, whenever I felt lost or overwhelmed in my day, I thought about being a beacon. I then thought about something that I could do to make me feel light or that could light up someone else’s day. It didn’t have to be anything big. Most often it involved drawing hearts and sharing them on social media, writing positive comments on other people’s social posts, going for a walk or doing some breathwork. Once I discovered some little easy things that created this feeling (Moment Level) for me I then made sure to incorporate them routinely into my day (Micro Level).

Taking this more flexible approach had a significant impact on my business as it led to the launch of my Happy Hearts Care range of cards and card deck. Many of the (Mindset) sayings I repeated to myself throughout the year have been incorporated into the cards’ self-care messages. These cards now continue to bring others joy and remind them to care and be kind to themselves. This outcome was much bigger and more left of field than anything that I could have identified doing a traditional SMART goal setting exercise at the start of 2020.

To Wrap Up

Introducing the 4 Macro, Micro, Moment and Mindset Levels has transformed the way I plan and measure my success. I now think about the big picture and translate that into my daily activities. I also have a way to bring myself back into focus and examine my expectations about reaching my goals.

This 4-tiered approach gives us the overall direction and guidance to take action and move forward more strategically and purposefully. It supports us to deal with any road bumps and unexpected events. And we can become more adaptable about the path that we take along the way. The 4M’s for goal setting give us direction and flexibility to work towards what we ultimately want in life and business.