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Hello, my aid worker, friend. I hope you're having a wonderful week.

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I remember from when I worked with the INGO sector, that this is around the

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time we would do our annual planning.

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Maybe that's not true for you and your organization, but I just

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thought I'd make an episode, which is relatable, regardless of whether

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you're doing annual planning or not.

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And that is how to know if you will achieve your goal.

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And when I'm talking about goal, I'm talking about your personal or

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professional goal, not just your team or organizational goal, which is

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more of the focus of the annual plan.

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And of course we want to take the annual plan.

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And I remember doing all those like flip charts and post-it notes all

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over the room, and then it somehow gets funneled into an Excel sheet.

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And then you have an idea of what you're going to be working on over the

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next year and how it lines up with the regional priorities and HQ priorities

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and so on, but you also have your individual priorities and maybe some

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of these you've already done for the calendar year, or maybe you have done

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when you did your performance plan.

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But, it's still important to take a look no matter where we are in the

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year, about how can you make sure that you are most on track and set

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up to succeed to achieve your goals.

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And maybe your goal is something like you want to be promoted to another position

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or take on more of a supervisory role, or you want to learn something new, have

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a certification in HR or whatever it is.

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I want to tell you how you will know if you will achieve your goal over the next

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year or at least make progress toward it.

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So it comes down to two simple things.

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The first is being clear about what you want to create.

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And I know that sounds obvious, but I say it because a lot of us are not so clear.

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We might have an idea in the back of our mind, what we want to create, or the

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impact that we want to make as a leader.

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And usually what I see with leaders is they take what is in their

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development plan and more of the project goals and they adopt those

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to become their professional goals.

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But I want you to take a step further and think about what is the impact that

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you want to make as a leader based on your unique, potential and skillset?

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What do you want to do? Not to add to your workload, but to motivate you to step into your role

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and make your own unique mark on your work and what you're doing.

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A lot of us don't think about that. We don't take the time to think about that.

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The impact that we want to create. And I'll talk more about that on a future episode.

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But that's the first step is just even really understanding

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what is it you want to create? Or what is the goal that I want to achieve over the next year, beyond

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just the project or the adoptation of the new system, whatever.

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That's great, but impact goes beyond that.

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Right? Those will make an impact in a way, but how do we want to make

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our own individual unique impact?

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So the second thing that we need to look at to see if we will achieve

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our goal is how you use your time.

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And I've talked about this a little bit in past episodes, but I think it's worth

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spending a little more time explaining it, because it is such a key thing.

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So are you spending time on the things which will lead to achieving

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your goal on a daily or weekly basis?

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And in the Coach Approach Leadership Style course, we determine this

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through what I call a time audit.

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So we look at how you're using your time and if it aligns with

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the impact that you want to create.

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And you have to be honest with yourself because sometimes we can trick ourselves

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into thinking that the activities or how we're spending our time is productive

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or leading to where we want to go, but when we really take a step back and look

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at it, we realize that they are not..

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So it's really important to first of all, understand where you want to go

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or the goal you want to achieve, but then secondly, understand how you

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are currently working or not working that will allow you to get there.

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So, for example, if you want to create a more proactive team, but

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you spend all your time on business development or answering emails for

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other people, then guess what you're going to create over the next year?

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Yeah, more business development and more email.

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So if we take the way we spend our time and we amplify it, that will tell you

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whether you will achieve your goal or not.

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Where you will be in a year.

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And it's a really helpful exercise to do on a regular basis because sometimes

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we get so busy and wrapped up on the day-to-day work that we don't reflect on

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will these things that I'm doing today help me achieve my goal a year from now?

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So we should try and spend more of our time on the activities or the tasks

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that will lead to achieving our goal and less on what I call empty calorie tasks.

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And I talk about empty calorie tasks on a previous episode,

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so I'll put that in the show notes. But basically those types of activities, which take up our time, but don't

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really lead to anything productive.

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For example, a lot of times it's email or approving things.

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So it's simple science, what we focus on and how we spend our

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time is what we are creating.

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But a lot of us become so lost in the everyday busy-ness that we are reacting

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to what others want from us rather than what we want to create for ourselves.

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And we also may not think that we have control over our time.

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So that's another thought leading to what I have introduced in the

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past two or three episodes that is High Performance Syndrome.

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And it's another way of thinking about the way we use our time

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and the way we lead, which creates busy-ness without impact.

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So when we believe we have no control of our time, this also will lead to us

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just being victim of whatever comes our way and so create whatever everyone else

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wants and not necessarily what we want.

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So I challenge you this week to reflect over how you're using your time.

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And ask if you keep spending your time, this way will it get you to

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where you want to go, or at least allow you to achieve your goals?

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If the answer is, yes, great, keep going.

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But if the answer is no, you may need to make some changes.

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And the thing is we all are spending our time on things every day, Every day,

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you make decisions on how you use your time, whether you're aware of it or not.

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And there's always something that will not get done.

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So do you want the thing that is not getting done to be the same thing that

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will allow you to reach your goals? Or do you want the thing that is not getting done to be the

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thing that will keep you in busy-ness?

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It's up to you. All right.

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So until next week, keep broadening your impact.

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Bye for now.