21. The #1 Tip To Keep Yourself and Your Team on Track
When you have big goals, understanding the progress you’re making toward your targets is super important. We’ve spoken before on the podcast about setting goals and achieving them. So, in this week’s episode, I’m showing you how to start evaluating the progress you’ve made, and what you still need to achieve.
You may have had lengthy goal-planning sessions as a leader, but as time passes, those goals get forgotten. However, when you can measure your goals regularly, keeping yourself and your team on track becomes much easier.
Tune in this week to discover the importance of evaluating your progress toward your goals, and why this doesn’t have to look one specific way. I’m sharing some questions to keep in mind as you do your evaluations, think about how often you want to revisit your goals, and how to interpret the progress you’re making, so you can change course where necessary.
If you don’t have the time or budget for ongoing coaching but you’re ready to jumpstart your success in your new leadership role, you don’t want to miss my new offer, The Leadership Accelerator. It includes a 90-minute kick-start session, and at the end of this session, you’re going to get a report detailing your strengths and how you can best use them in your role. You’ll also have set a clear goal and some action-steps to take over the next 30 days, two follow-up 30-minute sessions with me, as well as unlimited support on Voxer throughout the month. Click here to get started!
What You’ll Learn From This Episode:
Why it’s important to regularly evaluate your progress toward your goals.
How to start looking back at your goals for the year, and what you’ve accomplished so far.
Some questions to ask yourself as you evaluate your personal and professional goals.
How often we should be reviewing our progress toward our goals.
What you can do to adjust where you need to and create an action plan moving forward.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Full Episode Transcript:
On Episode 7, we talked about setting goals. And last week, how to achieve any goal. This week, we're going to be talking about how to evaluate your progress towards your goals.
Welcome to The Confident Female Leader podcast. A space for ambitious women stepping into leadership who are ready to take control of their circumstances and own their magic. If you're ready to start shedding your self-doubt, come into your new identity as a leader, and stop consistently undervaluing yourself so you can feel more confident in your role, this show’s for you. I'm Annie Framand, Psychologist, Certified Feminist Coach, and Master Trainer. And I'm on a mission to help women just like you stop overworking, overthinking, and overpleasing, so you can start creating success on your terms. Ready to create your dream life? Let's go.
Hola amigas, how are you? I'm doing so good. I went with my love to a dance social last weekend, and it was so fun. Actually, last time I went to a social it was not as fun. I've been dancing salsa now for six months, and my first social was kind of a disaster. I put a lot of pressure on myself. I really was not enjoying my time. No guys asked me to dance, and I thought it's because I sucked.
But I actually realized it's cultural. So, in Mexico, here, when men see you with another man, they just don't come up and ask you to dance. Whereas, in Montreal, for example, even if you're with someone, a guy is going to come and ask you to dance. And so, it's just not a big thing. So, different cultures. I was making it all about me, and I was beating myself up about myself skills. But it's not that, at all.
Long story short, this time, I had so much fun. I felt like, for the first time, really comfortable on the dance floor. I got into the habit of asking men to go dancing, because I understood that if I wanted to dance with anyone else than my love, and practice with different people and have a good time on the dance floor, then I needed to ask men to dance. Which again, the first time I did that six months ago was super uncomfortable. And now, not a problem at all.
So, we had a really good time. I actually saw, because they put on an event, this was with my salsa school, and they actually had some choreographies there, they had some couples dancing, and they also had women, and all of that. And it was really fun to watch. I actually gave myself the goal, by the end of next year, to be on the stage and perform in one of those socials. I'll keep you posted on that on how it goes. But it was really fun.
It got me thinking this week about our goals. Because I had set a goal for myself to be at an intermediate level in salsa by the end of this year, and so, as I watch my progress, I can actually say that I'm a little bit ahead of that time schedule. Because I'm actually going to be starting, in a couple of weeks, level intermediate at my salsa school. So, one could say that I've reached that goal.
Now, how long will I be at the intermediate level before I get to the advanced level? It really will depend on my progress. And it will also depend, when we think of that label, how does one even define intermediate versus beginner versus advanced? Right? Different schools will define it a little bit differently, for sure.
And so, it got me thinking too, goal evaluation tends to be a little bit subjective. Like, when do you know that you've hit a goal? Unless it's like a revenue goal, for example. If you're in sales, and you've done X number of sales, or if you were running a P&L, it could be a profit-based goal. Unless it's those tangible goals, sometimes it can be a little bit difficult and subjective to assess goals, especially in leadership.
Often, what we'll do is a 360, to look at different people's assessment of your leadership, and lower their perception of your leadership, or you can do a more objective leadership assessment, those kinds of things. So, what I want you to keep in mind as you listen to the podcast today, is that there is a measure of subjectivity in goal evaluation and goal measurement. Again, unless it's a number, then there's going to be some perception in it. Okay? I want you to keep that in mind as we go through the podcast today.
What I'm going to talk to you about is really just a simple way to evaluate your goals. And at the end of the day, really, what I want you to remember from the podcast today, is just do it. Just sit down. And whatever way you choose to evaluate your goals doesn't really matter. I'm going to suggest a few questions to keep in mind as you evaluate your goals.
But really, the important thing is just to sit down and actually do the evaluation in whatever way, shape, or form that takes for you. And so, what I want you to think about are your yearly goals. Also, your Q1 goals. And why we're doing this at this time is that we've wrapped up Q1, right? We're at the beginning of April. And also, I want you to think about your Q2 planning.
And often, what I have found in my experience in organizations, either leading a team or as a consultant working with HR, is that most of the time when we have goals, whether it be development goals, whether it be actual financial goals, or team goals, what tends to happen is we have this really long process. Especially in larger organizations, where we'll plan out the goals for the year. And it's this really lengthy process, especially when we think about the budgets associated and the resources associated to the goals.
And then, often the goals are forgotten. What I have seen is that very rarely will goals be measured every month and every quarter. So often, what happens, and it can happen mid-year, I've seen many mid-year reviews, but often it's too late. If you wait till the middle of the year to measure your progress or your team's progress towards the goals, often it's too late to readjust. Or you're really going to have to work hard to readjust, because you only have half the year left.
So, what I want you to think about is really, we're talking about quarter evaluations, but ideally what you want to be doing is doing a monthly measurement of your goals. It's really kind of like a GPS, right? You have that final destination that you've set in your GPS. And what you want to be doing is recalculating.
Because often, what happens is we don't realize it but we're straying from our goal. We might be taking the wrong street, or we're in the wrong direction even, which tends to happen to me quite often; not going to lie. I get might get lost really easily, and so you'll hear the GPS kind of going, “Recalculating. Recalculating,” to get you back on track towards your final destination.
So, that's what we want to be doing today. Where are you now in the destination towards your goal? Are you on target or are you not? And if you're not, you're going to have time to recalculate by the end of the year, and then just turn right or turn left, wherever you need to turn. Whereas, if you wait till mid-year, then you're going to have to work pretty hard to get back on track.
The first thing that I want to talk about is, if you have not listened to Episode #7, go, and listen to that. We talked about goal setting. And it was more of a personal goal setting, but it could also be professional. And what I was inviting you to do at that time is think to the end of the year.
And this is a different way of goal setting. So again, you can listen to that episode for the full details. But I was inviting you to look at yourself as if you had already achieved the goals that you want for this year. And so, I was inviting you to think about yourself, January 1st, 2024. Right? What are you doing? What does it look like? Really picture yourself in the space of having achieved those goals, which is very different than what we typically do now.
I reread that right; that was three months ago. I reread what I wrote on January 1, 2023, with myself in mind, my future self in 2024, and interestingly enough, I had visualized myself working with a coach that I admire very much. I had written down that I wanted to work with her one-on-one. And interestingly enough, that coach, at that time, I did not even know that she took on clients one-on-one, and she had no availability. I didn't even know it was a possibility.
A couple of weeks ago, I found out that she actually did take private clients and she actually had a spot available. And so, I signed up to work with her and I am now working with her. Now, this is not even something that I thought was a possibility when I wrote it down as a goal.
And so, I really want you to think about this, because often we set goals that we think are achievable, that they're possible for us. But I want you to keep in mind that you can also have stretch goals at work, or personal goals that you don't even know how you're going to get there, but it's something that you visualize for your future self and that you really want.
I had forgotten that I had written that, by the way, it's not like I wrote it on a Post-It or had it on my phone or anything else, anywhere. I had completely forgotten that I wrote that. And yet, my mind made it a reality, because it's something I really want it, right? Even though I forgot about it.
So, what I want you to do is think about… If you did that exercise, amazing. Go back there, wherever you wrote it; your journal, your computer, wherever; and look back at the goals that you had set for yourself for this year. And look at what you've actually accomplished towards those goals.
I'm going to give you a few questions that you can ask yourself. So, you're going to want to do that first for your yearly goals, personal and professional. And then I want you to look at Q1, the last three months. Ask yourself the same list of questions that I will give you. And then we're going to think about our action plan for Q2. Okay?
The first question I want you to look at is: What were my wins? And when I look back at the yearly goals I set for myself, where am I at now? Same thing for your last quarter: Where are you now? What did you accomplish? What are your wins? And what can you celebrate? What have you already done?
The second thing, you can probably guess, what are the gaps? What are the things that you wanted to do? And that you have not done? And these are things that you meant to do, but you didn't. I want you to look at why that could be.
And so, looking at some of the gaps, some of the things, what I have often found is the reason why there are gaps is that we often underestimated the amount of time we needed to accomplish the thing we set out to do. We often underestimated the resources we needed, and/or something else happened that became more important for us.
So, this is an evaluation that you're going to want to be doing as objectively as possible. Because what often happens, especially for us women who are more perfectionistic and people pleasing and we overthink, what can often happen is that we'll layer on the shame. “Oh, I told myself that I would do this, but I haven't.”
And then, we're going to find all of the different mean things that we can tell ourselves. “I'm not disciplined enough. I procrastinate too much. I do everything for everyone else, I'm always last. That's why I don't achieve my goals. I'm not smart enough. I'm not enough,” those kinds of things.
So, if any of those thoughts come up, or any other thoughts, just jot them down, and start to notice how meanly you speak to yourself, on your way to achieving your goals. But set it aside for now, right? We want to do an objective evaluation. But just jot them down.
It's kind of like when I used to facilitate leadership training, we would call that “the parking lot”. So, when somebody would bring up a question that wasn't related to the topic of the day, then we would put it down on a sheet, and we would call it the parking lot.
So, for example, someone would talk about making decisions. They had a difficult decision they needed to make, but the topic of the day that I was teaching was influence. I was like, “That's a great question. But today we're talking about influence. Let's put it in the parking lot.” I would jot it down so we wouldn't forget it. And then, if we had time at the end of the class, we would come back to it. Or sometimes during lunch, the person would ask me the question, and we chat about it.
You don't want to lose sight of these thoughts, but you also don't necessarily want to be spending the time to look at them right now. Okay?
The third thing: What is your plan to fill those gaps? And also, what is your plan to celebrate the wins? Because often what happens, is our minds are going to focus on what's wrong. They're going to focus on the gaps. They're not going to look at the wins. The best way to get more wins is to focus on the wins we already have and do more of them.
And also, what you want to examine, is what helped you get those wins. Because maybe you used certain resources, maybe you asked for someone's support, which enabled you to reach that goal. And in the gaps, you tried to let's say, to do it all yourself, didn't ask for support, and so maybe that's why you have some gaps there. So, what have you been doing that has worked, and try and replicate that and do more of that, and where are some of the gaps?
Also, what I want you to think about is where have you overcommitted? That's often the issue, is we will tend to underestimate how long something takes. And you will want to look at also, were you asked to contribute to a project that was not, for example, planned at the beginning of the year?
And let's say you have a colleague who left for another organization or somewhere else in your organization, and then you had to take over their team or you had to take over some of the projects that they had on their plate, and that was not planned. So, that might explain why you have certain gaps in your goals or your Q1.
And so, what you might want to do here, is revisit this plan, this yearly plan, or the Q2 plan, with your boss and say, “Hey, listen, I've got some stuff from Q1 that is going on the Q2 plan, because colleague X left. Now, very likely, some stuff from Q2 is going to get pushed to Q3, because now I have to take on some extra responsibilities, and we haven't found someone yet.”
So, what you want to do is you want to kind of renegotiate with your boss, right? What are some of the things that you have to drop from your plan because, hey, bottom line, you're already taking over someone else's job, so there's no way you can do it all. And so, you want to think about, is there anything in your way that was unplanned? That's one example. Or maybe you got sick, or maybe someone in your team got sick.
What could have potentially happened, that could have caused some of the gaps? And what can you do about it? And then have an action plan for how are you going to make sure that you reach the goals that you have on your plan for Q2? Do you have the resources in place? Do you have the team members in place? Do you have the budget? Do you have the time? What is it that you are working on moving forward? And what are some small tweaks that you need to do in order to be able to reach your goals?
And what I did, is I actually looked at the plan I had for Q2. I launched a new offer in Q1, and that took longer than I had thought, it took longer than what I had planned. And so, what I realized is launches tend to take longer than I think, and a lot of things can happen during a launch that you had not estimated, right? Especially since I'm not used to doing that many launches.
So, I've had to tweak my Q2 plan and say, “You know what? I'm probably not going to be launching anything else in Q2, because of the time commitment that it took me in Q1. If I launch something, it's going to be something that may not require such a time commitment.” I've had to revisit what I had planned for Q2. And so, how can your gaps inform your future plan?
You might also say, “Hey, you know what? I've reached all my targets, and I'm ready to go.” And so, maybe you'll want to have a bigger stretch goal for Q2 so that you can advance on your goals for the year. And depending on where you're at, as well.
And so, that is what I had for you. The important thing really, here, is to evaluate where you are, and take the time to do that. You're going to want to do that with your team members, as well. And take a look at where they are on their goals and what they need, in terms of resources and support, in order to reach their Q2 targets.
Have a wonderful week, everyone.
If you are loving the podcast, please rate and review. And do not forget to share it with a woman you know, who is a new leader and who could benefit from the podcast. Have a great week. Take care.
Hey ladies, I have a new offer for you that I am super excited about. It's called the Leadership Accelerator. I created this offer for new leaders and not-so-new leaders who tried navigating the transition from expert to leader on their own, but who just can't seem to figure it out.
So, if you've been overthinking your every move and your every email, and if you're still hustling every day to prove yourself in the job that you already have, which is keeping you in a cycle of overworking and people pleasing, this is for you.
Now, the Leadership Accelerator includes a 90-minute kickstart session. At the end of this session, you get a report detailing your strengths and how you can best use them in your new role. You also set a clear goal, only one, and some action steps to take over the next 30 days to help you reach your goal. And to help you achieve your goal drama-free, you get two 30-minute follow-up sessions; one halfway through the month and one at the end. In these sessions, I help you stay on track and remove any blocks that stand in the way of you reaching your goal.
The best part of this offer is that you get unlimited support for 30 days. So, for example, let's say that you've been working on a presentation for your boss. And you've been really agonizing over that presentation that you have to make, overthinking every single word because you're afraid of how other people are going to react. Now, what you could do is you can send me the presentation, and I'm going to give you feedback on it the same day.
So, no more wasting time procrastinating, looking at your screen, or chasing the words in your head. You have access to me for a month; whenever you're feeling stuck in the moment, whenever you need to write an email, whenever you need a sounding board for a decision, at any time. It's like having a coach in your pocket. Seriously, I wish I had that when I became a leader. It really would have saved me so much time and energy.
If you want to find out more and grab your spot, you can visit my website at AnnieFramand.com/leadership-accelerator, and if you booked before March 31, you get 20% off. See you there.
Thanks for listening to The Confident Female Leader podcast. Ready to dismantle the patriarchy with me? Come say “Hi” at AnnieFramand.com to learn more about how you can take this work deeper and apply what you're learning.
Welcome to The Confident Female Leader podcast. A space for ambitious women stepping into leadership who are ready to take control of their circumstances and own their magic. If you're ready to start shedding your self-doubt, come into your new identity as a leader, and stop consistently undervaluing yourself so you can feel more confident in your role, this show’s for you. I'm Annie Framand, Psychologist, Certified Feminist Coach, and Master Trainer. And I'm on a mission to help women just like you stop overworking, overthinking, and overpleasing, so you can start creating success on your terms. Ready to create your dream life? Let's go.
Hola amigas, how are you? I'm doing so good. I went with my love to a dance social last weekend, and it was so fun. Actually, last time I went to a social it was not as fun. I've been dancing salsa now for six months, and my first social was kind of a disaster. I put a lot of pressure on myself. I really was not enjoying my time. No guys asked me to dance, and I thought it's because I sucked.
But I actually realized it's cultural. So, in Mexico, here, when men see you with another man, they just don't come up and ask you to dance. Whereas, in Montreal, for example, even if you're with someone, a guy is going to come and ask you to dance. And so, it's just not a big thing. So, different cultures. I was making it all about me, and I was beating myself up about myself skills. But it's not that, at all.
Long story short, this time, I had so much fun. I felt like, for the first time, really comfortable on the dance floor. I got into the habit of asking men to go dancing, because I understood that if I wanted to dance with anyone else than my love, and practice with different people and have a good time on the dance floor, then I needed to ask men to dance. Which again, the first time I did that six months ago was super uncomfortable. And now, not a problem at all.
So, we had a really good time. I actually saw, because they put on an event, this was with my salsa school, and they actually had some choreographies there, they had some couples dancing, and they also had women, and all of that. And it was really fun to watch. I actually gave myself the goal, by the end of next year, to be on the stage and perform in one of those socials. I'll keep you posted on that on how it goes. But it was really fun.
It got me thinking this week about our goals. Because I had set a goal for myself to be at an intermediate level in salsa by the end of this year, and so, as I watch my progress, I can actually say that I'm a little bit ahead of that time schedule. Because I'm actually going to be starting, in a couple of weeks, level intermediate at my salsa school. So, one could say that I've reached that goal.
Now, how long will I be at the intermediate level before I get to the advanced level? It really will depend on my progress. And it will also depend, when we think of that label, how does one even define intermediate versus beginner versus advanced? Right? Different schools will define it a little bit differently, for sure.
And so, it got me thinking too, goal evaluation tends to be a little bit subjective. Like, when do you know that you've hit a goal? Unless it's like a revenue goal, for example. If you're in sales, and you've done X number of sales, or if you were running a P&L, it could be a profit-based goal. Unless it's those tangible goals, sometimes it can be a little bit difficult and subjective to assess goals, especially in leadership.
Often, what we'll do is a 360, to look at different people's assessment of your leadership, and lower their perception of your leadership, or you can do a more objective leadership assessment, those kinds of things. So, what I want you to keep in mind as you listen to the podcast today, is that there is a measure of subjectivity in goal evaluation and goal measurement. Again, unless it's a number, then there's going to be some perception in it. Okay? I want you to keep that in mind as we go through the podcast today.
What I'm going to talk to you about is really just a simple way to evaluate your goals. And at the end of the day, really, what I want you to remember from the podcast today, is just do it. Just sit down. And whatever way you choose to evaluate your goals doesn't really matter. I'm going to suggest a few questions to keep in mind as you evaluate your goals.
But really, the important thing is just to sit down and actually do the evaluation in whatever way, shape, or form that takes for you. And so, what I want you to think about are your yearly goals. Also, your Q1 goals. And why we're doing this at this time is that we've wrapped up Q1, right? We're at the beginning of April. And also, I want you to think about your Q2 planning.
And often, what I have found in my experience in organizations, either leading a team or as a consultant working with HR, is that most of the time when we have goals, whether it be development goals, whether it be actual financial goals, or team goals, what tends to happen is we have this really long process. Especially in larger organizations, where we'll plan out the goals for the year. And it's this really lengthy process, especially when we think about the budgets associated and the resources associated to the goals.
And then, often the goals are forgotten. What I have seen is that very rarely will goals be measured every month and every quarter. So often, what happens, and it can happen mid-year, I've seen many mid-year reviews, but often it's too late. If you wait till the middle of the year to measure your progress or your team's progress towards the goals, often it's too late to readjust. Or you're really going to have to work hard to readjust, because you only have half the year left.
So, what I want you to think about is really, we're talking about quarter evaluations, but ideally what you want to be doing is doing a monthly measurement of your goals. It's really kind of like a GPS, right? You have that final destination that you've set in your GPS. And what you want to be doing is recalculating.
Because often, what happens is we don't realize it but we're straying from our goal. We might be taking the wrong street, or we're in the wrong direction even, which tends to happen to me quite often; not going to lie. I get might get lost really easily, and so you'll hear the GPS kind of going, “Recalculating. Recalculating,” to get you back on track towards your final destination.
So, that's what we want to be doing today. Where are you now in the destination towards your goal? Are you on target or are you not? And if you're not, you're going to have time to recalculate by the end of the year, and then just turn right or turn left, wherever you need to turn. Whereas, if you wait till mid-year, then you're going to have to work pretty hard to get back on track.
The first thing that I want to talk about is, if you have not listened to Episode #7, go, and listen to that. We talked about goal setting. And it was more of a personal goal setting, but it could also be professional. And what I was inviting you to do at that time is think to the end of the year.
And this is a different way of goal setting. So again, you can listen to that episode for the full details. But I was inviting you to look at yourself as if you had already achieved the goals that you want for this year. And so, I was inviting you to think about yourself, January 1st, 2024. Right? What are you doing? What does it look like? Really picture yourself in the space of having achieved those goals, which is very different than what we typically do now.
I reread that right; that was three months ago. I reread what I wrote on January 1, 2023, with myself in mind, my future self in 2024, and interestingly enough, I had visualized myself working with a coach that I admire very much. I had written down that I wanted to work with her one-on-one. And interestingly enough, that coach, at that time, I did not even know that she took on clients one-on-one, and she had no availability. I didn't even know it was a possibility.
A couple of weeks ago, I found out that she actually did take private clients and she actually had a spot available. And so, I signed up to work with her and I am now working with her. Now, this is not even something that I thought was a possibility when I wrote it down as a goal.
And so, I really want you to think about this, because often we set goals that we think are achievable, that they're possible for us. But I want you to keep in mind that you can also have stretch goals at work, or personal goals that you don't even know how you're going to get there, but it's something that you visualize for your future self and that you really want.
I had forgotten that I had written that, by the way, it's not like I wrote it on a Post-It or had it on my phone or anything else, anywhere. I had completely forgotten that I wrote that. And yet, my mind made it a reality, because it's something I really want it, right? Even though I forgot about it.
So, what I want you to do is think about… If you did that exercise, amazing. Go back there, wherever you wrote it; your journal, your computer, wherever; and look back at the goals that you had set for yourself for this year. And look at what you've actually accomplished towards those goals.
I'm going to give you a few questions that you can ask yourself. So, you're going to want to do that first for your yearly goals, personal and professional. And then I want you to look at Q1, the last three months. Ask yourself the same list of questions that I will give you. And then we're going to think about our action plan for Q2. Okay?
The first question I want you to look at is: What were my wins? And when I look back at the yearly goals I set for myself, where am I at now? Same thing for your last quarter: Where are you now? What did you accomplish? What are your wins? And what can you celebrate? What have you already done?
The second thing, you can probably guess, what are the gaps? What are the things that you wanted to do? And that you have not done? And these are things that you meant to do, but you didn't. I want you to look at why that could be.
And so, looking at some of the gaps, some of the things, what I have often found is the reason why there are gaps is that we often underestimated the amount of time we needed to accomplish the thing we set out to do. We often underestimated the resources we needed, and/or something else happened that became more important for us.
So, this is an evaluation that you're going to want to be doing as objectively as possible. Because what often happens, especially for us women who are more perfectionistic and people pleasing and we overthink, what can often happen is that we'll layer on the shame. “Oh, I told myself that I would do this, but I haven't.”
And then, we're going to find all of the different mean things that we can tell ourselves. “I'm not disciplined enough. I procrastinate too much. I do everything for everyone else, I'm always last. That's why I don't achieve my goals. I'm not smart enough. I'm not enough,” those kinds of things.
So, if any of those thoughts come up, or any other thoughts, just jot them down, and start to notice how meanly you speak to yourself, on your way to achieving your goals. But set it aside for now, right? We want to do an objective evaluation. But just jot them down.
It's kind of like when I used to facilitate leadership training, we would call that “the parking lot”. So, when somebody would bring up a question that wasn't related to the topic of the day, then we would put it down on a sheet, and we would call it the parking lot.
So, for example, someone would talk about making decisions. They had a difficult decision they needed to make, but the topic of the day that I was teaching was influence. I was like, “That's a great question. But today we're talking about influence. Let's put it in the parking lot.” I would jot it down so we wouldn't forget it. And then, if we had time at the end of the class, we would come back to it. Or sometimes during lunch, the person would ask me the question, and we chat about it.
You don't want to lose sight of these thoughts, but you also don't necessarily want to be spending the time to look at them right now. Okay?
The third thing: What is your plan to fill those gaps? And also, what is your plan to celebrate the wins? Because often what happens, is our minds are going to focus on what's wrong. They're going to focus on the gaps. They're not going to look at the wins. The best way to get more wins is to focus on the wins we already have and do more of them.
And also, what you want to examine, is what helped you get those wins. Because maybe you used certain resources, maybe you asked for someone's support, which enabled you to reach that goal. And in the gaps, you tried to let's say, to do it all yourself, didn't ask for support, and so maybe that's why you have some gaps there. So, what have you been doing that has worked, and try and replicate that and do more of that, and where are some of the gaps?
Also, what I want you to think about is where have you overcommitted? That's often the issue, is we will tend to underestimate how long something takes. And you will want to look at also, were you asked to contribute to a project that was not, for example, planned at the beginning of the year?
And let's say you have a colleague who left for another organization or somewhere else in your organization, and then you had to take over their team or you had to take over some of the projects that they had on their plate, and that was not planned. So, that might explain why you have certain gaps in your goals or your Q1.
And so, what you might want to do here, is revisit this plan, this yearly plan, or the Q2 plan, with your boss and say, “Hey, listen, I've got some stuff from Q1 that is going on the Q2 plan, because colleague X left. Now, very likely, some stuff from Q2 is going to get pushed to Q3, because now I have to take on some extra responsibilities, and we haven't found someone yet.”
So, what you want to do is you want to kind of renegotiate with your boss, right? What are some of the things that you have to drop from your plan because, hey, bottom line, you're already taking over someone else's job, so there's no way you can do it all. And so, you want to think about, is there anything in your way that was unplanned? That's one example. Or maybe you got sick, or maybe someone in your team got sick.
What could have potentially happened, that could have caused some of the gaps? And what can you do about it? And then have an action plan for how are you going to make sure that you reach the goals that you have on your plan for Q2? Do you have the resources in place? Do you have the team members in place? Do you have the budget? Do you have the time? What is it that you are working on moving forward? And what are some small tweaks that you need to do in order to be able to reach your goals?
And what I did, is I actually looked at the plan I had for Q2. I launched a new offer in Q1, and that took longer than I had thought, it took longer than what I had planned. And so, what I realized is launches tend to take longer than I think, and a lot of things can happen during a launch that you had not estimated, right? Especially since I'm not used to doing that many launches.
So, I've had to tweak my Q2 plan and say, “You know what? I'm probably not going to be launching anything else in Q2, because of the time commitment that it took me in Q1. If I launch something, it's going to be something that may not require such a time commitment.” I've had to revisit what I had planned for Q2. And so, how can your gaps inform your future plan?
You might also say, “Hey, you know what? I've reached all my targets, and I'm ready to go.” And so, maybe you'll want to have a bigger stretch goal for Q2 so that you can advance on your goals for the year. And depending on where you're at, as well.
And so, that is what I had for you. The important thing really, here, is to evaluate where you are, and take the time to do that. You're going to want to do that with your team members, as well. And take a look at where they are on their goals and what they need, in terms of resources and support, in order to reach their Q2 targets.
Have a wonderful week, everyone.
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Thanks for listening to The Confident Female Leader podcast. Ready to dismantle the patriarchy with me? Come say “Hi” at AnnieFramand.com to learn more about how you can take this work deeper and apply what you're learning.
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