Now it's that time of year when everyone makes goals for the new year and you may already have fallen short of your New Year's resolutions as so many of us do. A big reason for that has to do with how you set your goals and so this strategy I'm going to share with you below is a foolproof way of helping you reach your target.
When you are goal setting look at 5 main areas of your life - faith, family, finances, fitness and fun and what you would like to achieve in 2023 for each of those.
The key to good and effective goal setting is to use the SMART system which stands for Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic and Time-bound.
Specific this is important you need to be specific don't have them woolly, describe exactly what it is you want to achieve. How many books are read. How much weight do you want to lose? How fast do you want to run? What room do you want to decorate? How much do you want to earn this year?
Measurable goals without a measure are just dreams. How are you going to know when your goal is achieved? Sometimes it is easy - I want to read 50 books in 2023 that is a measurable and specific goal but if you just say you want to lose weight what does success mean to you? Break that weight down into measurable goals every month. How are you going to measure this? What is the figure that will mean the goal is achieved? Do you want to compete in a competition? What is the aim? Are you hoping to get your fitness up before a marathon? By how much? Do you want to run a 5K PB what is that PB?
Attainable - your goals need to be something you feel is possible, if you believe that you won’t achieve them aim for something that appears more likely for you. It is no good having something that you don't feel that you can achieve because that's just going to pie in the sky and it's going to be detrimental to you you're going to feel like you're not successful because that goal is just so far away so have something that actually feels like you can get it. Break it into smaller goals for you to achieve every month. If you've got a big savings plan that you want, break that down, make it into something accessible that you can do in January, increase that in February, increase in March etc. Don't set yourself a goal of going to the gym 7-days a week if actually in reality that's going to really cause you to struggle it's far better to think of doing it two to three times a week and being consistent in that than having a blast one week and then falling by the wayside 2 weeks out of 4
Realistic -we are not living in a world of magic so it has to be a goal that is real. I'd love to be a tall brunette but I'm 5 ft 4 I can't improve my height. I would have loved to have been a fighter pilot but I was too light for the ejection seat so it just wasn't going to happen. It needs to be something that you've got a hope of actually achieving because again we are talking about reality and if you keep going up against something and not being successful because there's something that you can't change you are going to feel demoralised and you won’t have success. Now actionable steps also fit in here - you have to do the work. I remember someone telling me I was so lucky to be a doctor, it wasn’t luck, it was study lots of, it was working every weekend to fund it, it was actionable steps everyday that got me to where I wanted to go. If you are not prepared to put in the work then your goal is not realistic then either.
Time-bound when do you want to achieve this by? If you don’t have an end date or a monthly breakdown then it will never happen. You need that deadline or several deadlines. Want to lose weight? How much weight do you want to lose in January? How much do you want to lose in February? What's your running plan going to be and when? What's your personal best 5K you are aiming for in January? Break it down. Want that cluttered spare room a cute office? Break it down into manageable steps each month so that you can actually start to make progress. Things like 15 minutes clutter clearing everyday for 30 days can be far more successful than just the goal of clutter clearing that spare room in January.
Once all that is in place you need to have a bit of a plan that you can review and a criteria that you can adjust to ensure you stay on point. Get my download to fill in to to help you achieve that for the coming year just click the button below
Then set a time in your diary every month at the end of the month so that you can review your progress then adjust accordingly. So if you have a goal of reading 50 books over the year and you break that down into how many books you are going to read a month you need to read 4 books a month with 2 months with 5. The other thing of having these review points is that it keeps you focussed and it keeps you motivated. It reminds you of what those goals are and it helps you set in motion the actions that you need to do in order to achieve that goal.
My FREE download covers all this with space for you to fill in your specific goals and includes my monthly habit tracker too.
Enjoy this goal setting blend when you plan and review to help keep you focussed.
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