How To Set Goals You Can Achieve

It’s January!  The perfect month to get on track with your goals and to set some new ones. And if it’s not January when you are reading this, anytime is really the perfect time to set new goals and revisit old ones.

I’m not just talking about Fitness Goals, YES👍, but also self, family and other life goals. Goal setting helps individual’s build self-confidence, increase productivity, improve focus and faithfulness. And the best part is… seeing your goal come to pass!  Working hard to make them happen and then being able to enjoy that feeling of accomplishment when you are finished. 💫

 

But I Don’t Want To Set Goals…. It Never Helps Me…

Oh but it does, I promise!  You’ve just got to stick with it.  Here are 3 reasons why goal setting works:

1. Goals trigger behavior

Having a clear, concise and compelling goal will motivate you to keep pushing toward it. If Susie-Q wants to be able to run around the park with her kids without feeling like she was going to pass out or if Jessie-Z REALLY wants to fit into a certain pair of jeans; then they both are going to be more motivated to exercise and push through to the end of each of their workouts.  They will also be more enthusiastic and willing to eat a balanced diet full of nutrient rich foods.

2. Goals guide your focus

As you set goals, you naturally direct and focus your attention.  This will inturn, lead you in the right direction and forces your actions and behaviors to follow.  There is a popular saying, “Whatever the mind believes, the body achieves.”  We can strive to keep our bodies in subjection to our mind and our mind in subjection God (if that is your thing 😉).

3. Goals sustain momentum 

Seeing progress is exciting and its pretty addicting.  After you achieve something, dopamine, the happy hormone, is released in your brain.  The feeling you get from this hormone release, makes you want to continue to strive for that level of satisfaction and joy, thus making it addicting. Seeing progress, by way of not getting out of breath running up a flight of stairs with her kids, or actually fitting into those jeans… leads you to want to do more, to set another goal, to keep at it! ✍︎

Have you ever caught yourself saying “Man, I’m on a roll?”  Well, according to Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, you are experiencing FLOW – a highly focused mental state. (Picture- Wikipedia)

“To achieve a FLOW state, a balance must be struck between the challenge of the task and the skill of the performer. If the task is too easy or too difficult, flow cannot occur. Both skill level and challenge level must be matched and high; if skill and challenge are low and matched, then apathy results.”

-Dr. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

 

 

Follow Through On Your Goals and Stick To Them!

“BE like a postage stamp. Stick to a thing until you get there!” -Josh Billings

By staying specific and focused on the goals you set and by seeing them all the way through until the end;  You will see the results that you are believing for.

In life, there are times we may start off going in one direction, but end up somewhere we never expected to be. In order to ensure that we do not stray away, goal setting is the key.

 

Lets Talk About 3 Tips to Help Stay on Track of Setting and Achieving Goals:

1. Set detailed short term goals and realistic, achievable long term goals. 

• Setting short term, small goals is crucial for the ability to achieve them.  If all your goals are far fetched and deep in the future, then you are more amp to give up a lot sooner.  Perhaps only set one or two clear and concise, realistic long term goals. Thats all you really need at one time.
• Make your short term goals, SMART GOALS:  Make them Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound.

 

👇 Here is my layout, with examples of a SMART GOAL 👇

2. Decide if your goal is really important to you.

• Is what you are looking to accomplish worth your time and energy to achieve it?  Do you care about the end result enough to follow through to completion? Ultimately “time” is what we are looking not to waste and goal setting cannot only maximize time,  but also multiply it. Meaning that you are giving yourself emotional permission to say “no” to certain things and to spend time on matters today within your goals, that will give you more time tomorrow.
• Imagine if everyday someone would give you $86,400 to spend and you had to spend it all. If not, you would just lose any residual money that was unspent. I am sure we would all find ways to put every penny of that money to use so we don’t lose it, right? (Money is tangible; the 5 senses can understand what it is.) But now let’s say you get that same quantity of 86,400 for something intangible like “time” (60 seconds X 60 minutes X 24 hours =  86,400 seconds in one day). Everyone has access to this intangible asset in our lives, but the question in how do we use it? We are given this time each day and we want to be able to use all of it to its greatest potential. Goal setting assists in the organization of how we want this time to be used.
• Now, ask yourself this? Am I convinced my goal is worth the effort to pursue until I hit a resolution? You decide 🤷‍♀️.  If not, or if not right now in this point in your life, then get ride of it.  Or put it aside until you are ready to put everything into making that goal a reality.  If you’re on the fence, then write it down in a “future goals” section and wait a month to revisit it to see if you’re ready to make it an active goal.

 

3. Find someone you look up to and learn and be inspired by them

• Think of someone in your life or out in the big world of the internet, that is inspiring to you.  Follow them, watch how they do things, learn from them to better understand what they are doing and why.  You can learn a lot from others who have already mastered similar goals to yours, in their life. You may not have the exact same way to get there, but you can be inspired by their drive, what they have already achieved, how they think, how they act… or whatever part about them that relates to your goals and desires; just follow, learn and be inspired!🌟

 

Are You Convinced Yet?

If so, my job is done!  Let’s all proceed, striving to become superior goal setters, multiplying our time to reach our aspirations faster! Make sure that you “spend” all of your 86,400 seconds each day to the upmost, not leaving time for distractions but focused on reaching your next goal. Remember, you can’t manage what you don’t measure and you can’t improve what you don’t manage.  Start with goal setting.

 

Please, let me know your aspirations to setting some goals for this year… or even for the next few months! You can share your specific goals or just your ideas to start planning some new goals.  If you want to take it one step further… Try making a Vision Board!  I absolutely love this way of developing goals… take a look at my post about Vision Boards here, if it intrigues you!