GOAL PLANNING FOR HUMANS

Even though we tend to spend the first few weeks of it frantically tying up loose ends from the previous year, January feels like a fresh start. The new year is a natural place to level-set — to plan, reflect, strategize, and of course, set goals. 

Whether you’ve been living the freelance life for a long time or a short time, you’ve probably internalized the gold-standard formula for goal planning. SMART goals, or those that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely, are the basis for annual employee reviews, performance improvement plans, and project check-ins across the globe. 

Universal as they are, if drafting your annual batch of SMART goals feels like a tedious corporate obligation, you’re in good company. This year, your friends at Uncompany are wielding our freelance freedom to create space for a long-overdue overhaul of goal-planning norms.

What Are SMART Goals and Why Do I Feel Empty Inside? 

The logic behind SMART goals is sound: vagueness is the enemy of success. HR professionals like SMART goals because they force employees to commit to a specific objective and create a pass/fail scenario that makes evaluations less ambiguous. 

On the employee side, however, setting those annual goals can feel like building your own bear trap. No one wants to appear unambitious, but it’s also hard to swing for the fences knowing that unmet metrics may be coded as failure in the eyes of an employer. It’s also expected and understood that your goals will primarily benefit someone else’s business plan, no matter how sincerely you insist that you want to learn Excel this year for your own edification. The goals you set may be well-founded, but it’s hard to feel intrinsically motivated when they aren’t really yours. 

When you step into solopreneurship, a liberation-yet-disorienting shift occurs. You are both the goal setter and the performance evaluator, so there is simply no further reason to choose goals that make you feel anything less than excited, fulfilled, and aligned. 

Sounds good? Great! Gather up your freelance colleagues and come walk the PLANK with us. 

Swap Your SMART Goals for PLANK Goals

Personal

Despite its clinical overtones, business goal setting is a fundamentally emotional process.  Acknowledging how your goals feel in your brain and body is the first step towards achieving them, so choose some that you deeply want. 

A personal investment in your goals doesn’t just motivate you to get started — it’s essential for carrying you through the unpleasant parts of the pursuit. When you break down any goal into specific steps, you’re guaranteed not to like all of them. If this year’s ambitions require you to learn a new skill, remove an obstacle, or change your mindset, you’re much more likely to tolerate the discomfort if you feel connected to the result. 

Life-Affirming

As you map out your year, it should feel fairly simple to identify how meeting each of your goals will improve your life. 

Freelancers have a strong connection to our businesses. The work that we put into them comes back to us in particularly obvious, immediate ways. Your professional goals will have an impact on your personal life and vice versa, so make sure you feel good about the payoff. If it doesn’t make your life fuller, easier, or more fun, you don’t really need it. 

Anxiety-Reducing

Your goals should challenge you and take you outside of your comfort zone, but thinking of them shouldn’t fill you with dread. 

If your goals feel overwhelming, break them down into smaller pieces or change your approach. Have you resolved to sort out 5 years of tax records this year and you can’t imagine anything worse? Take it one shoebox of receipts at a time, or better yet, crack open your budget and find the funds for professional help. There is almost always more than one way to achieve a result, so why not choose one that doesn’t drive you crazy? 

Network-Driven

Goal-setting is usually done in isolation and the freelance life gets lonely if you allow it to. Instead of setting out in stoic pursuit, consider all the ways that your network of colleagues, mentors, and confidantes can help you meet your goals this year. 

No freelancer is an island, and receiving help, advice, or feedback doesn’t detract from an accomplishment. Don’t limit yourself to what you can do alone. Consider your network in your goal planning, and watch a new world of possibilities open up. 

Kinetic

There’s no substitute for the spark. Your goals will either fill you with excitement, enthusiasm, and curiosity or they won’t — so choose the ones that make you want to move. 

Your wildest dreams may not be A-for-Attainable by SMART goal standards, but they can help you define your direction. If you’ve been rehearsing your TED Talk in the shower to an imaginary standing ovation, this may be the year that you step out as a thought leader. If you fantasize about retiring at 45, why not set a goal to create streams of passive income? 

Choose goals that move you towards the things that light you up inside (even the huge, vague things like financial freedom, industry recognition, and inner peace). Then, get to work building the pathways, bridges, and tunnels necessary to get there from here. 

Ready to walk the PLANK? Jump in, the water is fine.