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Welcome to 2023 with no new year's resolutions
At some points in life, I stopped making a new list of new year's resolutions. It's not because I'm not ambitious but I'm thinking more long-term:
I now commit to a North-star goal that requires myself to invest time and efforts in 2-3 years to build up to the success that I want.
I found it more sustainable and happier than having a sprint every year to chase after multiple goals as I may end up feeling so disappointed because I missed one or two items in my list.
2 years in pandemic and being a new parent really taught me the value of patience.
Design your North-star goal in life
If you ever heard of this concept - it's actually a term in driving business growth and relates to setting OKRs (Objective, Key Result).
However, we can definitely use this in our life. In my definition, a North start goal is a long-term goal that helps you navigate through challenges, inspires and motivates you to keep moving forward to achieve the end-goal that you dream of.
The North Star vision is a long-term vision, one that is always there, provides direction, inspires, is clear and visible, and attained with incredible difficulty. ~ Jeff Loehr
If you don't have one, pick one thing that you really want and design a game plan for it. The North-star goal should be ambitious, but also be specific enough to keep you motivated in the morning to get up and work towards it in the next few years.
Keywords for you to remember: Ambitious, Specific and Long-Term.
Break it down and make things happen
Good things do not happen overnight.
After having a North-star goal, you have to break it down into smaller pieces to make a progress over years.
When I was a college student, I dreamed of working and living abroad. I wanted to see the world. It then became a North-star goal for me to live up to. Although back when I was 20, I did not know how to achieve it with a local background and my family could not afford studying abroad.
I decided to break down my goal as below:
Goal: Working & Living Abroad
Q: How to work abroad without having an international college degree?
A: Work at multinational companies
Q: How to get into multinational companies as a local talent?
A: Be a top-notch outstanding talent with a special skill that they need
Q: How to become such talent?
A: List out all things that a top-notch outstanding talent to get hired:
- Verbal and written communication in English and other languages
- Critical thinking
- Teamwork and collaboration
- Team leadership
- International exposure
- Special Knowledge and Skills in some specific areas
- And so on
By breaking down the goal by answering multiple questions of How and So What, you can deep dive into creating specific actionable plans that help you achieve the big goal.
Prioritize to achieve more
If you have a long to-do list and want to achieve everything at the same time, always remember 2 important things:
- Your resource is limited so always apply 80/20 rule
- Balance always comes with trade-offs. There is no "perfect" balance.
In different phases of life, your prioritization will change. It's up to you to pick what you would like to invest on and trade off something in return.
It's really about answering the question "What's important to you NOW".
If you want to become "SO GOOD THEY CAN'T IGNORE YOU" then you have to stay focus on learning and mastering your expertise.
With that focus, then it will come with trade-offs. Examples of trade-off can be less time spending with your loved ones, watching the shows that you like or sleeping everyday.
Know your investment to accept and face the trade-offs.
Be fearless in 2023
Start creating the life that you want using your North-star goal.
Be ambitious, be specific and think long-term.
This new year's resolutions will be so meaningful if they directly contribute to your end-goal.
If you enjoy this post, you can check out other articles in the Corporate Success topic HERE.
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