5 Steps for Setting and Achieving Your Goals
I’ll be the first to admit that I have often let “New Year’s Resolutions” get the best of me. It’s like I think that I’m going to wake up on January 1 and be a completely different person and suddenly want to work out and wake up early. We’ve all fallen into the traps of New Year’s resolutions. “I’m going to lose 15 pounds, read 20 books and save thousands of dollars.” But how many times have you let your resolutions fade into the background sometime around the middle of February? Somehow, life kicks in, we get distracted and we forget about our hopes and dreams.
A few years ago, my husband came up with an awesome plan, initially to help himself get in shape. He made a chart to help track his progress and wrote: "Be A Better Fucking Person" on the top of his clipboard. We’ve been using this “BABFP” system consistently while continuing to modify and improve it… and I can honestly say that it's been such a game-changer in our lives.
The following tips are based on our little BABFP system (which is a little more complex). But if you’re interested in learning more, I’d be happy to share!
Reflect & Align. The first step in setting your goals is to reflect on your successes of the past year (or life up to this point—you should take a lot of time and get really deep here) and celebrate these accomplishments! Ask yourself questions like, What have I done well? Where do I feel disconnected? Where do I see myself going? What am I passionate about? When you do this kind of deep digging, you become way more focused and powerful in your goal setting and achievement. I like to journal this process. Try to get really quiet and treat it as something ceremonial. Feel gratitude for your life journey, even if you are unhappy with where you are now. Coming out of this process, you should have a solid understanding of where you’re coming from and we can move into Step 2.
Get clear on what you want and why. The next step in goal setting after you have reflected on the way you have lived over the past year is to visualize what you want your life to look like in the future. Why do you want this? This is the most important step in the entire process. A lot of people find this step difficult, and it can be tricky to decipher. Basically, you need to keep peeling back layers until you have your purpose and your motivators. Keep asking yourself WHY you want something until you get down to a core need or desire. This is best done immediately following Step 1. Try doing this somewhere out in nature because this can help ground and connect you.
My biggest tip for this step is to visualize your ideal life vividly. What are you doing? Who are you with? What do your surroundings look like? What does it feel like? Be in this visualization. Just by doing this, you are raising your vibration and attracting these things into your life. When you come out of your visualization, try to identify specific goals and intentions that will help you get to the place of your ideal life. Look at what the difference is between your life now, and the version of your life that you desire. Use this as motivation (don’t let it scare you!)
Break your goals and intentions down into actionable steps. Here is when Vinnie’s plan of action really takes place. If your goal is to run a marathon, you’re not going to do that overnight. If your goal is to get healthy— you’re going to have to figure out more specific plans to put into effect. Break down your goal into something you can achieve on a daily basis, and then reward yourself for achieving these small goals. Try starting small. Give yourself 3 habits to focus on.
Example: the 3 habits we want to focus on are getting in better shape, reading more books and working toward a personal hobby. Take these and make them something small that can be accomplished on a daily or weekly basis. So maybe your daily goals are to complete 20 minutes of intentional movement (running, yoga, biking), reading 10 pages of a book and working on a side project that you’ve been putting off for 30 minutes. OK, now that you have an idea of how to set these goals, let’s move onto Step 4.
Write your goals down someplace you will see them every day. Statistics show people who write down their goals have over an 80% higher success rate of achieving them. 80 percent. That is SIGNIFICANT. So take your action steps and write them down and put them somewhere you will see them daily. Next to your bed, in the kitchen or at work. Now reward yourself every time you accomplish one of your small steps (give yourself a star system or points system). I like to put stars on a goal sheet like I’m in Kindergarten. If you feel comfortable, share them with a friend, someone who can help motivate you and keep you accountable.
Start and Keep Going! You’ll never get anywhere if you don’t start. Goals and intentions are meaningless without action. You’ve got to start somewhere so just do it! Some tips for staying accountable: set weekly calendar alerts to tally up your points or see how well you are doing with your action steps. Set periodic check-in dates with yourself (we use 100 days as a benchmark to assess, review and set new goals and intentions for the next 100 days). If you don’t check in with yourself, you’ll let your everyday life take over and your dreams will continue to fall by the wayside.
Throughout the process: Give yourself grace. Don’t be hard on yourself if you miss a day or aren’t achieving your goals as quickly as you’d like. It is a journey and you might struggle throughout your process. Just keep focusing on your why and try to stay present. Reward yourself for small improvements. This is all about clarity intention and action.
Let me know if you have any questions, comments or tips of your own!
xo, Anna