Have you DECIDED your 2027 Goals?

Last week, during a coaching call with one of the loan officers I've coached for a long time, we were talking about finishing the fourth quarter strong and what that looks like specifically. He's also doing his business planning with his branch right now, so we touched briefly on 2027, and he mentioned something he had decided.

I asked him, what's your definition of a decision?

He paused and looked a little puzzled, so I went a step further. Does a decision mean there's no going back, a clear line you can't cross in reverse? Or is it blurry?

"That's a really good question," he said. "I guess it's kind of blurry."

We use the word "decide" all the time, and I think most of us would give a similar answer if we were challenged.

Where the word comes from

When I'm in Bible study, I look up the Greek and Hebrew meanings of words, which gives me a much richer sense of what a verse is communicating and how to apply it. So I did the same thing with this word. The Greek didn't get me very far, but the Latin was fascinating.

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, decision comes from the Latin decidere, which literally means "to cut off."

So making a decision means cutting away the alternatives, which gives a real decision a clear line you can't cross back over.

I think the word goes deeper than most of us take it. When we talk about decisions, we usually mean the goal itself: the production number, the new lead source, the plan for the year.

Those need to be defined with real specificity, including what you want, by when, how you’re going to get there, and even more importantly, why.

But a real decision asks something of us beyond the definition. What gets cut away is something in us, such as a habit, a belief, a story about what’s possible for us, or a familiar way of showing up that may have served us well so far and doesn’t fit the goal we’ve just written down. The why is what makes that cutting worth doing.

I don’t think most of us keep the old way around on purpose. It’s familiar, and when the goal gets hard, familiar is where we drift back to without noticing. That may be what the blurry line is: the goal has been written down, and what needs to change in us hasn’t been named yet.

I believe we fall to the level of our identity rather than rising to the goal on the page, which is why a plan doesn’t change much until something in us does.

Questions worth journaling on

Take one goal from your 2027 list, or one you’ve committed to for the rest of this quarter, and journal about these questions:

What would have to change in me, whether a habit, a belief, or the way I show up, for this goal to be real? Think of a goal that faded earlier this year. What in me pulled back toward the familiar way? Who do I need to be in order to reach this goal, and what about who I’ve been so far doesn’t fit?

I’d encourage you to write your answers out rather than thinking them through in your head, since writing gives them room to get specific. Take your time with them. Once you can name what needs to change in you, the next step is structuring the goal itself so it’s specific enough to act on, and that’s where we’ll pick up next week.

These are the kinds of questions I explore with my coaching clients. If you’d like to see what coaching together could look like, I’d love to set up a discovery call. Simply send me a message and we’ll find a time.