New Year, New You: Swap Resolutions for Goals Part 3 - Achieving Your Goals

Hopefully you've come to realize why goals are important after reading Part 1. Maybe you've even nailed down your goals for the year/month/week/whenever. Great Job!! Now it's time to get to work making your goals become a reality. However, most people quickly lose site of those goals and give up. There are countless excuses like "I'm just too busy to find time to workout" or "My car broke down so I'll never be able to save enough money now, why would I even try if I won't make my goal?"

QUIT MAKING EXCUSES!!

Follow our steps to stay on track for the year ahead and finally hit those goals you've set for yourself.

1. Be Committed

To start with, actually be committed to achieving your goals. This may sound silly because why would you make a goal you aren't committed to? Maybe it sounded nice to have extra money in savings, or to run a half marathon this year, but you don't really want to put the work it takes into achieving your goals. It takes hard work to accomplish something and you need to be committed to working hard to conquer your goals.

2.Write It Down

Write out your goal list. Writing helps commit things to memory and by ingraining your goals in your mind, you are more likely to go after them. Now that you wrote out your list, hang it up! Don't go hiding in a cabinet or under your bed either. Put it up in a prominent place in your house. You should be proud of your goals and by seeing them daily, you will remember your motivation for setting them in the first place.

3. Visualize Your Goal

While writing your goals down may be one way to visualize them, you can also create a vision board. Put pictures representative of your goal where you will see them everyday. If you don't like the picture idea, you can put up motivational quotes that inspire you every day. 

4. Tell Everyone

 If you family and friends know you are committed to accomplishing something, you are much less likely to back out. You wouldn't want to lose face with them would you? Friends and family also make an incredible support network. Maybe some of them have the same goals as you and now you can work together to stay motivated. If nothing else, when they ask how your progress is going, it will be a friendly reminded to stay on track.

5. Teamwork

 This follows the last tip very closely, but if none of your friends or family want to participate... Well, maybe it's time to expand your friend network. The internet is amazing in that you can find someone with like interests no matter what they are. This will keep you accountable if you are checking in with your teammate(s). In our next post, we will be posting our goals and encourage you to share your and your progress as we review our goals monthly. We would love to become an accountable partner for anyone out there who needs it.

6. Chart Your Progress

Pull out those markers and poster board again to make tracking your goals fun! Whether you are a creative type or a numbers person, this can make making progress fun and motivating. Maybe if you're a numbers person, you use an excel sheet to track progress (my personal favorite). Or if you're creative, the sky is the limit. Your progress chart could become a work of art, who knows?  This would be a great place to add smaller milestones to your large goals. These milestones can be daily, weekly, and/or monthly goals. Whatever you need to make yourself complete your goals, do it here.

7. Do Something Everyday

Keep your momentum up by working on your goals everyday. If you have time, complete a bigger task. If you don't have time, don't forget about yours goals. Something as small as thinking about achieving your goals or how great you will feel when you've crossed that finish line can help keep you motivated. Try to make time everyday. Maybe you can trim off an extra 15 minutes from your facebook browsing time to go for a walk, balance your budget, or clean your fridge (make tasks appropriate to goals).

 8. Don't Worry, Be Happy

Word your goals to be positive rather than negative. For example you can change "I'll never be able to send my kids to college if I don't save this money" to "Our kids will be so far ahead if we are able to save money to help them attend college." People are wired to avoid feeling intimidated or afraid, but relish in the opportunity to feel successful. If you feeling negative, take time out of your day to rephrase those thoughts to something happier. This will make you more likely to work on a goal. It is far better to run to something, than to be running away from something.

9. Try a Reward/Consequence Method

Reward yourself for even small accomplishment (don't overindulge though). Maybe your reward is that you can relax and spend one night binge watching netflix before you jump back in the next day. Consequences do not have to be severe. You could commit to donating money to charity if you miss you goals. This is not a strong consequence and someone will definitely benefit from your failure, but money is a great motivater and will help keep you in line with your goals.

10. Get Back Up

If you fall off the wagon along the way, get up and climb back on. Goals are not set in stone. That is the beauty of it, you can adjust your goals periodically and that is why we will be evaluating our goals on a monthly basis. Let's say your car does break down and you don't have an emergency fund. You end up spending way more than you planned and now you know you won't be able to make your savings goal for the year. That is no reason to quit saving alltogether. Try your hardest to continue saving and to find creative ways of making extra money to meet your initial goal. If this fails, adjust your goal down a little to make it still achievable.

These are just a few tips/tricks to keep yourself motivated. If you have other suggestions we'd love to add them to the list. Now that you've made it through 3 days of goal setting posts, you are fired up and ready to get after your goals. Tomorrow we will be sharing our goals and would love to hear yours as well and let us know how you stay motivated!