Achieve Your Dreams: A Fantastic Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Goals
Five Key Considerations for Goal-Setting: A Blueprint for Achieving Your Dreams
A new year has come. How was the old one? Have you had good times? Good adventures? Good moments? I hope so! I hope that your year was spent with loved ones, and mostly having fun, loving, and being loved. I also hope this year will be filled with wonderful people, spectacular experiences, and uplifting love.
Like every start of a new year, we like, or at least I like, to set some goals. Some stuff that, if I achieve, it’ll make me feel better about myself. It’ll give me a sense of progress, power, control, and safety.
But, getting over the reasons why we set goals — story for another time — I want to talk to you about five checkboxes that I consider when I set goals.
For those of you that are on a run, I’m :
- Why do I want this goal?
- Can I do it? Does it fit with my other goals?
- How will I do it?
- How do I know I achieved it?
- How will I celebrate when I reach it and, more importantly, how will I celebrate on the way there?
And that is it. Easy, right?
We will go through all of them here and see their purpose and why they are important.
From my point of view, there are three stages for a goal, choosing it, implementing it, and finishing it.
We will start with the choosing stage.
Why do I want this goal?
The first question that helps me ask when starting a goal is to ask why I want it. This might seem like a small question, but this depends on how deep you want to go.
Let us say you want to go to the gym more this year. This is a goal a lot of people have. Now, why do you want to do that? Is it because you want to feel more attractive? Or is it because you want to feel healthier? Or is it because you want to be able to do some sort of move or exercise?
The question is important because, if, for example, your answer is to be more attractive, having a body that can fit into some standard will, most probably, not make you feel more attractive. Being acceptant with yourself and with your body, and being ok with how you are and what you want, will make you confident and that is more attractive than any type of standard you put your body against.
Practically what you want to achieve with this goal, is not to lose weight, but to be more attractive. And that is a whole other goal in itself.
So, be honest with this question, answer it from your heart. Because your real goal might be hidden in the answer.
Can I do it? Does it fit with my other goals?
This is another question that is hard to answer. That is because we want to do everything. We want to go to the gym every day, read a thousand books, go to the park with our children, read bedtime stories, go on dates with our spouses, work more, do a side project, and sleep more at the same time. And that is, as you might have realized, impossible.
So, how do you answer this question? Well, I don’t know. This is very hard for me as well. I have a very hard time saying no to projects and goals, and the impossibility of achieving them makes me feel extremely terrible.
There is something that might be interesting to take into account. I believe that I do this, take more than I can chew, because I am afraid of being successful. By taking more, I make sure I will not succeed, and thus I stay in the same situation, where I am safe.
But, this is my case, it might not be yours. Like I said, a very hard, but important question.
The impossibility of saying no also impeeds this question. If saying no to others is hard for you, saying no to yourself, is probably hard as well.
But, if you know that you tend to overbook yourself with projects and goals, and you know there are things in your subconscious that keep you from succeeding, then, maybe, you can take them into account when deciding on starting a new goal. If you feel that you are a few, but you might find time for another goal or project, and you know the above about yourself, then don't take it.
What I can tell you is that
Prioritizing finishing goals over having a lot of goals is muuuuuch more rewarding and efficient.
How will I do it?
This is part of the second stage. You have decided what goals you want to pursue, and you have decided that you can achieve them. Now, how do you achieve them?
Here there are 2 things that I find very important:
- Short goals or stages
- Track your progress
- And have fun :D :D
Take into consideration how much time it takes you to get bored by a project, and how you get engaged in the projects.
If you lose interest in projects, or your drive, in a couple of weeks, then split the projects into stages that don’t take more than 2 weeks. This is very important. You want to be sure you won’t get into a downward spiral of doom when you lose your interest, for a bit, then you realize you fell behind, then you feel overwhelmed, then you fall behind even more, then you are more overwhelmed, and so on.
So, small steps. But track them. It is important to track your progress. That is because, if you take small steps, your progress might not be visible. After all, you are on a small scale. But when you look at your progress from a bigger perspective, you see how much you have gone and achieved.
And the second thing Is to have fun. This is hard, but it is so important. A fun task or goal is so much easier to achieve than a boring one. And that does not depend on how hard it is.
So look for ways to make your goal fun, in the gym, listen to podcasts, or laugh with your friends, when reading books, look for books you like, or read in the cafe or in a place you love, when working, do it while listening to music you like, or arrange your office in a way you love. Anything can be changed to the way you implement your goal to make it more fun and enjoyable. Do that. It will help you a lot.
How do I know I achieved it?
This is an idea I got from the SMART acronym. the “M” stands for measurable. And that is important, because if you don’t know when you will succeed then you are, practically, setting yourself to fail.
Goals like, “I will improve my public speaking”, “I will do more exercise”, or “I will eat healthier”, say nothing about how you know you have achieved that goal.
It helps to know what you should do, and when you should do it.
“I will improve my public speaking”, can be changed into “I create a presentation every month and will present it to my friends, for one year”, the “I will eat healthier” can be changed into “I will eat no sugar in 5 of the 7 days of the week for 2 months”, and so on. This way you will know when the goal is achieved and how to achieve it. In these particular cases, you also get a small idea of how to split the goal.
How will I celebrate when I reach it and, more importantly, how will I celebrate on the way there?
Let’s talk rewards! You put in a lot of work, you crushed your fears and your will, and now it is time to reward yourself because you deserve it.
You might say that finishing your goal is your reward. To that, I say “Bulls**t”.
And I mean it. Rewarding yourself for any hard work is super important. It will convince your mind to link hard work with a nice feeling. You will want more of that in the end.
It is important here to be careful that you don’t ruin any other goals when you reward yourself. Like getting a huge chocolate or going for ice cream because you finished a presentation, but you want to eat healthier at the same time.
But, go out, or in nature, or with your friends, or play a game, or buy yourself a nice T-shirt, or whatever, but give yourself rewards for achieving your goals.
Also, give yourself rewards for each step you have achieved, not only for the full goal. Did you read a chapter? Get yourself a coffee. You went to the gym, today? Take a bubble bath. Did you manage not to eat sugar today? Awesome, have a brownie! I am just kidding :D :D Don’t do that.
But you get my point, give yourself rewards for achievements. Also, give yourself big rewards for big goals. Scale your rewards with the size of the goal. Did you pass a final exam after studying 6 months? Then get yourself a nice vacation. You went one week without scrolling social media for more than 30 minutes a day? Then, buy yourself a brand-new Ferrari! You deserve it.
Don’t judge me like that! You know how hard it is to resist Social media :P :P
Jokes aside, giving rewards is super important. Make your effort worthwhile.
Conclusion
In conclusion, ask yourself these questions before setting your goals, follow them and you will succeed:
- Why do I want this goal?
Be honest and search deep. Your true goal might be hiding beneath the one you are setting.
- Can I do it? Does it fit with my other goals?
It is hard to say no, but if you feel there is a chance you won’t be able to achieve your goal, don’t do it. It is better to achieve some goals than to stress for a long time and not achieve any!
- How will I do it?
Make sure you will achieve your goal by splitting it into small pieces. This way you know you will not lose interest. Track your progress and have fun. Always have fun!!1
- How do I know I achieved it?
Make your goals measurable in time and quantity. Be sure that you will identify the moment you have achieved your goal. Making them vague is just setting yourself up to fail. Help yourself to succeed.
- How will I celebrate when I reach it and, more importantly, how will I celebrate on the way there?
Celebrate your victories. All of them! Doesn’t matter how big or how small. Celebrate them all. Your work and your time deserve to be celebrated and rewarded. You deserve to be rewarded! Give yourself these rewards!
And that is it!
Stay strong!
Have an awesome year!
Have an awesome time!
Thank you very much for reading!
Hugs and positive thoughts, my friends!
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