How I Use Reverse Engineering to Hit My Goals

Goal setting at the beginning of the year is one of my absolute favorite rituals. It’s a running joke with friends and family that I don’t go out on New Year’s Eve because I’m busy planning the year ahead and honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way. There’s something about starting the new year with a clear roadmap that really kicks me into high gear and I’m ready to hit the ground running!

But to be honest, I haven’t always been great with goal setting. I wasn’t getting specific which meant I also wasn’t creating a clear vision on how to reach those goals. It wasn’t until I started getting really strategic about my goal setting process that I started seeing some serious results.

I typically do this goal setting for my business but I’ve also slowly started incorporating it more into my personal life so I wanted to share my strategy to give you some ideas on how you can incorporate this into your life, whether it’s personally or professionally!

START BIG PICTURE

I love to start by just sitting and thinking big picture. What are the big things I want to accomplish in the next year? Who do I want to be as a person? What are some things I want to focus on working on? Are there new things I want to try? New projects I want to work on?

I really spend time daydreaming a bit and writing it all down. But you have to get specific (you’ll see why later!). For example, instead of saying I want to save more money, I set a specific amount of money I want to save over the year and why I want to save that amount. Getting specific with and attaching a why to your big, major goals will not just help you create a roadmap on how to reach them but it also provides that boost of motivation so you can keep your eye on the prize. Plus, it will also help you identify where you are throughout the year in reaching that goal.

Once I come up with a clear picture on how I want my year to look overall, I sit down to write myself a letter. I write it from the perspective of me a year in advance and in the letter, I talk about all the things I did/accomplished and how I feel about those things. I didn’t know this until recently but this is called preemptive gratitude. Basically it’s you being grateful for things that haven’t actually happened yet. Gratitude is an insanely powerful tool for reaching your goals and living a fulfilling life but your brain doesn’t actually know the difference on whether this has happened yet.

I think the biggest trick to any type of gratitude is truly sitting and feeling how you’ll actually feel once you obtain what you want. Real talk, there have been occasions I’ve actually teared up just thinking about reaching a goal or going on a dream trip or buying a house. Whatever it is, you have to really put yourself in the mindset that you already obtained it and sink into those feelings.

BREAK IT DOWN INTO SMALLER GOALS

And now let the reverse engineering begin! We’re going to take those specific big goals you came up with and start to break them down into smaller ones. The best way to show you this is probably with actual numbers so I mentioned instead of saying you want to save money, give yourself a specific number.

For the sake of easy numbers, let’s say I wanted to save $12,000 for the year. This is your main goal but to know if I’m on track throughout the year, I like to break it down into quarterly and monthly goals as well. So it would look a little something like this:

Yearly: $12k
Quarterly: $3,000
Monthly: $1,000

You can break it down further into weekly or daily goals but I personally work better on a monthly timeframe which is why I do it this way.

CREATE A ROADMAP

Now that the big goal has been broken down into smaller ones, it’s time to evaluate how you’ll get there so you can create a clear action plan. This could be as simple as making sure you save a percentage or specific amount of each paycheck. Or it could be steps you’d take to obtain more money i.e. starting a side hustle (if we’re still talking about the savings goal).

From another perspective on something that maybe it’s quite as tangible, if you’re working on improving your mindset the steps you take could be more like listen to 1 podcast episode on mindset a week or creating a daily gratitude routine.

Either way you want to make sure you have steps written down that will help you reach your smaller and ultimately larger goals. This way if you get sidetracked you can come back to the note and steps you wrote down to help you get back on track!

SPRINKLE SOME MAGIC ON IT

And now it’s time to sprinkle that extra magic on all your goals. That letter I wrote my future self? I’ll sit back down and read it again. Feeling all the same feelings of what it will be like at the end of the year and I’ve hit all my goals but keeping in mind all the steps I have planned to get myself there. This is a simple step but I think it’s a great way to solidify the year ahead.

I also love a good vision boarding session, especially since I have a clear idea on what I want for the year ahead. Then I can find imagery and affirmations to support that vision. Since I only read the letter to my future self a couple times a year, this visual representation is something I can look at every day (I have mine right by my coffee maker). This helps give me a little daily reminder of what I’m working towards without much effort since I literally just have to look at it.

REGULAR CHECK-INS

This isn’t really part of the goal setting process but more an ongoing activity you should do throughout the year to make sure you stay on track. So every month I check-in to see if I hit that monthly goal. If not, I’ll make some adjustments (for example, I need to save an additional $500 the next month to stay on track to hit the quarterly goal). This way you can be proactive throughout the year to stay on track which makes it much more likely you’ll hit your goals no matter what!