Set goals! All our lives we’ve been told to set goals, yet no one bothers! Does anyone else wonder why that is? I know why I have not in the past. It takes discipline and effort to plan your life in a diligent manner. There were more compelling reasons not to set goals. Personally speaking, it is easier to set on the couch after a long day of hard work. We deserve a break, right? Most of us can come up with any number of excuses that fit our lives perfectly; reasons not to strategize how to make our lives better.
If you are like I was, you find yourself at a crossroads numerous times. There are indicators that help you know when you are at one. For me, I found myself repeatedly saying how I should do something. It got to the point where I drove people around me crazy talking about all that things I was going to do. Although I received encouragement, I could feel a storm brewing. One day I realized, maybe I should shut up and do something, rather than always talking about what I should do. That’s when I realized I needed to turn my mental “should-do list” into written goals.
If you’ve never set goals, I recommend looking up SMART goals before you begin. This method creates an excellent framework to build your goals in a way in which they will benefit you the most. I was previously exposed to these types of goals in the business world, so I already had experience setting goals like these for years. For whatever reason, I chose to ignore applying this same practice to my personal life.
During the last week of the year, I make it a point to reflect over the entire year. That part has never been a struggle for me. Like most people, I would get motivated and start thinking about setting new goals. It’s easy to get fired up when a new year is coming. We convince ourselves that we will do it right this time. If we already screwed up this year, we are tempted to wait to start until the new year. The whole idea of waiting is totally illogical and irrational! Start now!
The whole reason for setting goals is because our lives are not where we want them to be. After some deep reflection, all it takes is some strategizing and then putting a new plan into action. There have been so many times in my history when I did not set any goals at all. When this happened, I never did anything consistently to bring about a better life. Through the years, I’ve set numerous goals that soon drifted off in a matter of time and never amounted to anything worthwhile. At the end of 2019, I began my deep reflection again. This time, I came up with a better plan. For the past four months, I found out an exciting fact. Goals make me a doer! I’ll tell you more about my experience in part 2.