An Annual Effort: Go for Growth
How my yearly goal setting process, started in 2018, feeds my own personal growth and development, and the impact I believe it can make for others.
Before starting Go for Growth, I was convinced there was little time for self-reflection, goal setting, and planning. Like many people, I set goals on January 1 but quickly struggled to hold myself accountable and see them through to completion. My idea of setting goals was creating poorly written lists on my phone of lofty and vague objectives. Few were achieved and even fewer were attempted.
By mid-January, I often felt disappointed and frustrated. The only comfort I had was knowing that so many others out there were just as undisciplined. A New Years survey completed by the University of Scranton found 92 percent of people who set resolutions don’t achieve them. Perhaps even more striking is what a Harvard Business study found in 2018: 83 percent of people don’t even set goals.
There are easily thousands of statistics just like these that represent the reality of goal-setting in society. The story boils down to this: most people don’t set them, those who set them do little to actively pursue them, and a slim fraction of the population actually achieve their goals.
“Most people don’t set [goals], those who set them do little to actively pursue them, and a slim fraction of the population actually achieve them. ”
For most of my life I sat in the first category—my attempts were poor, my discipline even worse, and I was unhappy because of it.
I started to find that my full potential would be left untapped if I ignored the importance of setting and actively working toward achieving goals. I needed to get tactical, find methods to better define my goals, and outline ways to improve discipline and accountability—driving the right behaviors to conclude a year with new achievements under my belt.
This recognition was ultimately what inspired me to create my first Go for Growth plan in December 2017 while riding on a train from Zurich to Vienna. In its initial form, Go for Growth was little more than an outline of my objectives for the coming year—it included a detailed description of what I wanted to achieve, quantitative metrics that I could measure against, and tactical action steps that helped plan my path to accomplishment.
It worked. By the end of 2018, I completed more than half of the ambitious goals I set (like running two marathons, growing my savings, taking some online courses, traveling to new places, and learning basic French vocabulary). As the year progressed and I saw my objectives come to fruition it was clear that Go for Growth could be something special—for me and perhaps eventually for others.
Introducing Go for Growth
Bookstores are flooded with personal development and growth books that include dozens of chapters and recommendations to improve goal-setting. Many are super helpful and provide invaluable guidance to achieve one’s goals and desires. But I always found many of these books limiting because they felt static. They didn’t typically lay out exactly what I had to do in an easy-to-use format.
This is one of the main drivers behind the creation of Go for Growth.
Go for Growth is more than a book. It’s a tool for accelerating goal attainment. It uses a simple four-step framework and workbook-driven structure to build a plan while being read. It combines leading principles and practices from numerous organizations with my learnings from practicing Go for Growth for several years, all in the name of driving incremental growth and development.
Whether you’re a high school student, recent retiree, young professional, or seasoned executive, the design and nature of the Go for Growth Workbook helps identify, document, and chart a path forward for whatever you want to accomplish. This may be finally training to complete a triathlon, writing a book you’ve always imagined, keeping in touch with more friends, or landing an internship.
Whatever your goals, Go for Growth is a structured way to pursue them.
The unique four-step methodology that governs the Go for Growth process is called the AVID Framework which stands for “Assess, Visualize, Identify, and Dig In.”
For each step, the Go for Growth Workbook includes straightforward and meaningful activities to help goal-setters along their journey to defining those goals. Best of all, these activities are built directly in the workbook and can be completed directly in the PDF document—making it especially easy.
When you finish the exercises, the Go for Growth Workbook is ready to print at home or your local print shop. If you’re like me, it’s an exciting moment to see your work finally pulled together, nicely printed, and bound in a spiral (not to mention the ease of using the hard copy to reference, review, and benchmark your progress).
Go for Growth also includes ready-made templates to help accelerate your ambitions. They are based on real materials and resources I have developed and consistently used—from a Weekly Wellness Tracker to the Go for Growth Scorecard.
Why I’m Passionate About Go for Growth
Those closest to me know my borderline obsession with Go for Growth. I wouldn’t have invested more than a thousand hours of my free time this year preparing Go for Growth, this website, and everything that goes with it if I didn’t believe in the value and impact it can have on the lives of others.
From the colleagues and clients who asked if they could have a copy of the workbook, to the stranger sitting next to me on a flight last year requesting I send her my Weekly Wellness Tracker template, I am convinced Go for Growth is a special and worthwhile pursuit for anyone who desires the discipline and satisfaction of pursuing their goals. It’s not a gimmick and it’s not just another book—it’s a tool for accelerating achievement.
We have so much to look forward to in the coming years as our Go for Growth community expands and develops. The collective feedback of people from around the world who leverage Go for Growth will be especially critical in helping us evolve and enhance Go for Growth with every edition.
I look forward to welcoming you to our Go for Growth community and walking alongside you on this journey of personal and shared fulfillment.
MAKE 2023 YOUR YEAR AND START YOUR GO FOR GROWTH JOURNEY TODAY