The best way to make, and continue to generate progress, is to set and achieve goals. The goal-setting process is crucial to any success. If you have no clear vision of what you want to accomplish, you will be hard-pressed to accomplish anything.
Having clear goals in mind is vital to this process. Monthly goals are a great way of maintaining growth towards larger, long-term goals. They allow you enough time to make measurable progress without forcing you into a frenzy. Learn how to set monthly goals that will boost your productivity and potential. Completely change your directory and create the life that you have always wanted.
Monthly goals, broken down weekly, push you to gain momentum daily without overtaxing your already busy schedule. If you already have a clear vision in mind, you are two steps ahead, good job! But let’s say you don’t really have a monthly goal. If you have a vision of where you want to be in the future, you basically have a goal.
Now, let’s clarify it:
- Have you made some resolutions this year?
- How are they going?
- How long did you keep them?
- Did you have a clear path on how you wanted to achieve them?
- Have you taken any deliberate steps to achieve them?
- And most importantly, have you written them down or set a deadline?
Without a clear, step-by-step plan to follow, reaching even the simplest resolutions will be challenging. Let’s stop and break down how we would set these goals. Then, maybe we can shed some light on why this is so important.
Goal setting can look differently depending on your comfort level. Do you often have a dream of what your future will look like? Have you ever said, “Once I —-, I will —-”? These are precursors to goals. Without a plan, a goal is just a dream. You need to create a SMART plan to achieve them.
SMART goals are the most likely goals to be achieved.
Creating a vision board is a great way to organize your different goals for each area of your life. Vision Boards use the power of visualization and manifestation to help you set and achieve crucial goals. These are generally big goals. Goals will take time and planning to achieve.
Creating a vision board and posting it somewhere visible will help you visualize this new possibility. You have created a plan, made it real, and now you can achieve it. Simply creating a vision board and including tangible goals has been shown to make it more likely to accomplish what you set out to. But first, you have to put it out into the Universe. Start with this vision board, and the path to your large-scale goals will begin to become clear.
Let’s say your goal is to live a healthier lifestyle. It seems simple enough. But without a doable plan on how you want to achieve this, you will quickly slip back into old habits.
There are different definitions of a healthy lifestyle depending on your starting point. An excellent place to start is a goal: simply eating better for the first month. Maybe your goal for the first week is not to buy any junk food on your next grocery shopping trip. The week after that could be to substitute fresh veggies for a bag of chips once that week. The following week we can make the same substitutions 3 times.
Next, you can commit to trying out one new “healthy” recipe a week. These goals should be clearly written out in your planner each week. If you don’t use a planner, post them somewhere that you look every day, like on your nightstand or your bedroom mirror, to remind you of your goals each morning.
These simple steps are clear and well-defined. You have either achieved them or not. You can feel a sense of accomplishment when you cross the item off your list. Using a planner really is the best way to set and achieve goals. It will help you track your progress, but it will help you better track your time and obligations, increasing your productivity.
Breaking down a big goal into tiny pieces makes it more attainable.
No matter how committed you are to buying that gym membership and working out 5 days a week, starting January 1st, chances are not in your favor. Expecting something so drastic from yourself is unrealistic and cruel. Let yourself build up to a goal that big.
Many resolutions fail, not because of goal setting but because of execution. It is important that you strive for progress in any area, NOT perfection. Achievable setting goals is much more rewarding than trying for something beyond your reach and falling short.
- Take baby steps,
- Create a realistic and achievable plan,
- Slowly increase the difficulty and commitment as you notice progress.
Maybe you want to save more money this year. You should still start with the little steps that have clearly defined parameters.
Start with a budget. Your goal for the first month can be something as simple as sticking to it. Or, maybe you only eat out once this week. Next week you don’t eat out unless it was previously scheduled. Another week it could be no impulse buying.
Another route could be transferring a predetermined sum into savings. Try $10 the first week and $15 the second. Slowly increase the amounts weekly until you get to an amount that works with your budget. These small goals all build into a larger ultimate goal, but they are things that you can apply to your life today.
Tracking daily progress will motivate you to continue making progress towards progressively larger goals. To-do lists often have an “out of sight, out of mind” existence. When you don’t reflect on this list, it just doesn’t exist. Having a planner that you check and update daily will help you cross these items faster.
The best part of goal setting is the sense of accomplishment you get from achieving these goals.
Breaking down big goals into tiny manageable ones allows you to make an intimidating goal reasonable. It will also give you room to grow into larger expectations of yourself. If you successfully save $100 this month. Maybe we can aim for $200 next month. Perhaps you were able to overshoot that goal and save $150.
How much better about yourself will you feel if you save the $100 or more that you set out to save this month than if you didn’t save any of the $1,000 you wanted to save this year? Setting goals with no plan to achieve them is just a setup for failure. Giving yourself a month to achieve something is a reasonable time frame without forcing yourself into an unrealistic schedule. It also gives you some leeway.
If you fall short on a goal one week. You can still make it up by the end of the month. The most important thing to remember is to break your monthly goals down weekly and review them daily. This keeps them present in your mind, so you are constantly looking for ways to make progress. This progress is what leads you to your destination.
If you are unrealistic about your goals, or the time frame in which you can achieve them, you’ll never be able to reach them.
Building self-confidence will lead to setting more goals, which will lead to making more progress towards your dreams.
It is also a great way to practice self-discipline. Putting restraints on yourself for spending your money or time can help you teach yourself how to say no to yourself. It can also help you be strict regarding taking care of your responsibilities and obligations before indulging in your wants.
Now, while you don’t need an ultimate dream, of where you want your life to go to set short-term goals. It is a good idea to start getting into that mindset. This year, set the goal to choose a profession or build and run a multinational company, or perhaps something closer to home. Having these clearly defined, long-term goals will help drive the theme of your short-term goals. This will give you a clear sense of direction and make massive undertakings more manageable.
Year by year, month by month, and week by week, you can tick off each of these milestones while on the path to your own personal success story.
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