How to Set Goals & Succeed
I love goal setting, I find that goals provide drive and motivation. I also just genuinely enjoy looking forward to things, so naturally I look forward to achieving my goals. I generally set one overarching goal of the year, a ‘theme’ you may call it. 2020 for me, was all about mindfulness, I wanted to implement a regular meditation practice into my everyday life (more info on meditation here).
And I am proud to say that I have achieved this, and mindfulness is now an everyday habit. In saying this I would not have achieved this goal without perseverance and an action plan.
I am going to help YOU, achieve your goals with the formula I use.
STEP 1 – IDENTIFY PRIORITIES
As well as my year’s theme, I also set many other goals that are divided into different areas of my life. This is completely personal, spend some time finding the priorities in your life to create your own unique categories.
I break my goals down into
Health & Fitness
Business
Personal Development
Financials
Extra (habits, travels etc)
STEP 2 – LET’S GET CLEAR
Time to find some clarity on your goals, this can be really helpful to narrow in on your priorities. Use these questions as journal prompts, sit down and spend some quality time answering them.
How do I want to show up this year?
What habits do I want to continue this year?
What new habits do I want to start this year?
What habits do I want to leave in the last year?
What really lights me up inside?
What do I want to achieve in this year?
How will I feel when I achieve this?
Where do I want to be, who do I want to be & what do I want to be doing this time next year.
STEP 3 – FIND YOUR THEMES
Now look back over everything you have written/typed, circle or highlight themes that stand out to you. This can be an eye opening experience, there may be certain words that were prevalent or words that provoke emotions in you.
From these themes, you can identify what your heart’s priorities are, it doesn’t matter how big or small they are.
Example: when I did this exercise, it became obvious that mindfulness was a big theme for me; I had circled things like “more me time”, “calmness”, “less stress” & “control my emotions”.
STEP 4 – YOU’RE A GOAL SETTER (What + Why?)
Time to set some goals. Take these identified themes and turn them into goals.
Include your “What? & Why?”(why do you want to achieve this goal).
I then go back to my unique categories identified in step 1 and start to list goals underneath each that reflect my journaling themes.
Example: I took my theme of mindfulness and started writing down a few goals that I wanted to implement. This brought me to goals of “work meditation into daily schedule, to destress and become clear every day” and “yoga at least twice a week, to destress and become more mindful & present”. I then listed this under my health category.
STEP 5 – YOU GOT THIS (When? How?)
Time to create an action plan to achieve these goals by specific dates.
This is adding in your “How?”.
This is important, some goals are big, yes, and it would be unrealistic to achieve them within a 12 month period, but you can take action steps to get closer to achieving that goal. Have a mindset that focuses on progress. If you would like to take it a step further break your goal into smaller action steps. For example, if your goal was to run 10km, an action step could be to, run 3 x a week and then it would be run 3km non-stop and so on. If it is a bigger goal, simply break it down into smaller chunks.
Example: “I work meditation into my daily schedule, to destress and become clear every day, this is a daily habit as of 1st Jan 2021”
STEP 6 – FEEL INTO IT (Emotion)
Let’s attach emotion to these goals. At the moment they are just words on paper or a screen. But we want to really connect with them. Go back through each goal and add on how you will feel once you have achieved them.
Example: “I work meditation into my daily schedule, to destress and become clear every day, this is a daily habit as of 1st Jan 2021, I feel calm, present, content & powerful”.
STEP 7 – STAY ON TRACK (Revisit)
Revisit your goals. Tweak if necessary, this is such an IMPORTANT step. Often people set these beautiful goals, and as time passes, they are simply forgotten as they set back into regular routines and habits.
Here’s some ideas to keep you focused and smashing your goals:
-Vision Boards (LOVE)
Physical, hang up & look at every day & feel into the emotions of when you achieve each goal. Visualise it. Digital, can be made through website like Canva, save as laptop/phone screensaver and look & feel into it every day.
– Journal about your goals, some people like to do this weekly.
– Set a daily reminder on your phone to revisit your goals, you can use this time to say affirmations as well.
– Set a monthly reminder, to come back & check in with your goals reassessing if necessary. Reset this timer.
– Set a separate reminder in 3 months for example, where you spend some thorough time, adjusting and feeling into them. Reset timer.
-Accountability, if this works for you, find a support system. Share your goals with somebody or find an accountability buddy to motivate each other & talk about it your goals, this will also assist in becoming clearer on your goals
-Enhance your environment, how can you alter your environment to assist you in your goals (for example I have use salt lamps and an essential oil diffuser to create a relaxing atmosphere for my meditation practice).
-Link habits with daily tasks you already do (for example, when putting on perfume say affirmations).
In summary this formula is: What + Why + When + How + Emotion + Revisit = ACHIEVABLE GOALS
BONUS FORMULA
There is also a common formula of “SMART GOALS” that you may find helpful and resonate with.
SMART GOAL
Specific
Measurable (how can you tell you have done it successfully)
Achievable
Realistic & Rewarding
Time Sensitive
“I + present tense action + specific goal + by when + how you feel”(on end date / once achieved/Visualise bring that feeling along with you)
Example: I work meditation into my daily schedule this is a daily habit as of 1st Jan 2021 I feel calm, present, content & powerful”.
I hope you have found this helpful, focus on progress and celebrate the small achievements. I hope you have a beautiful year and smash your goals! If you think anyone you may know will benefit from this, please share it with them.
What are some your goals? Let me know below.
