Today’s topic of discussion is all about the Five Things You Can Do Today to Achieve Your Goals. There is a lot more to achieving any goal than just having the goal. But it is the first step.
You may wonder how some people seem so great at achieving their goals while other people aren’t so good at it. Part of the reason why some people fail is that they do not have a specific goal, one that is clear and focused. In addition, they do not have a schedule of action to actually work toward achieving the goal.
In order to meet any goal, start with these 5 things:
Clear, Specific, and Doable Goals
Each Goal Needs Set, Actionable Tasks
Schedule Everything
Take Action on Each Goal
Rinse and Repeat
How To Create Clear Goals
For any goal to be achievable it must first be clear and very specific. It also must be possible. You do want to challenge yourself a bit and set the goal high. But you want to ensure that any goal you set is possible. Therefore, you will need to do a little research in order to set a goal.
For instance, let’s say your ultimate goal is to lose 50 pounds. Obviously, anyone who needs to lose 50 pounds and sets their mind to it can do so. But they can’t and shouldn’t do it in one month. So an unreasonable goal is “I want to lose 50 pounds in a month.”
Instead, a more reasonable and doable goal is to state “I want to lose 50 pounds in 30 weeks.” This is in line with health recommendations not to lose more than 2 pounds per week and gives you a little cushion for plateaus and other issues.
Being Specific With Your Goals
Any goal that you really want to meet needs to have the “why” and the “how” included with the “what” of the goal. In the example above you want to lose 50 pounds in 30 weeks, which will be a little less than 2 pounds per week. You’ll need to look at your diet, compute the number of calories you should consume and the amount of exercise you need to see those results.
Thankfully, today there are online calculators to help you determine this easily. But let’s say that you determine that if you consumed 1800 calories a day, and walked for 20 minutes each day, you would achieve the goal that you set within the time limit.
So, now you need to include planning your meals and fitting in the exercise necessary to reach your goal. But because of the research you did, you know exactly what is needed to be successful with the goal you set.
Planning The Tasks
You can see a clear path to success just by going further and adding these actionable tasks:
* Eat 1800 calories a day * Walk fast for 20 minutes per day
Seeing that in black and white you can see that it’s very doable and achievable. But, there are a few more steps necessary to achieve your goals.
Scheduling Your Goals
Do not leave anything to chance. Instead, schedule the work necessary to reach your goals into a real calendar. Writing a list isn’t good enough – you need to schedule everything so that you don’t miss a single day due to losing track of your schedule. You’ll need time to eat healthier, which requires more chopping and cooking. And you’ll need time to fit in the exercise, which is going to really take more than 20 minutes due to prep time and recovery time. You need to be realistic about how long each thing will take and schedule them into your day properly.
No goal will ever be achieved if regular action isn’t taken each day. Each morning, look at your calendar and follow through on the plans that you’ve made and the criteria you’ve set for yourself to get things done. All you have to do is the minimum necessary each day to reach your goal. When you get through each day having done the minimum, you’re a success – each and every single day. There is nothing else that can be the result of daily activities other than success when you think of it this way.
What’s next?
Finally, you’ll need to repeat these steps every single day. When you make very specific and clear goals with very specific steps to achieving the goal, you will soon discover the secret to success that seems to escape so many people. The real secret is in the doing. It’s like going on a long hike – if you take one step at a time, moving in the direction of the map that you’ve planned out for yourself, you will get to the end and you will be a success.
Reaching your goals is just a matter of setting reasonable and realistic goals, and then setting up a schedule of actionable tasks and steps that bring about the end result you want.
You can start today to achieve your goals. I hope you enjoyed today’s article on the Five Things You Can Do Today to Achieve Your Goals.
Remember, I am always here for you if you need help with creating your goals. I offer one on one mentoring sessions that will help you create, plan and execute your goals.
Just sign up by using the link above. Pricing starts as little as $55.00, yes…really!
Today’s topic for our goal series is How to Prioritize Your Goals. In order to prioritize your goals, you’ll need to have a good understanding of what you need to be happy in your life.
The Four Areas of Goal Setting
Below are the typical four areas in which most people make goals:
1. Family – Spending more time with your kids or partner 2. Financial – Saving toward your six-month emergency cash or starting a business 3. Physical – Being healthy and more active 4. Personal – Getting more education, or devoting more time to spiritual pursuits
Where Will YOU Focus?
Within each of these areas are numerous concerns, but most goals can be summed up into one of these four areas. As to which goals are most important at any given time, you’ll need to ask yourself some questions to determine where to place your focus.
Which goals nag at you most often?
– What keeps you up at night that worries you? Are your finances suffering because you cannot earn enough money at your current job? You’d like to figure out how to get off the debt treadmill? This is a goal that fits in with all four of the areas. Financial stress can cause a lot of problems with your health. And even your personal development as well as cause problems within the family.
Which goals can be accomplished most easily?
– Some goals are very short-term but give maximum impact without too much work. For instance, maybe you have a goal of walking 15 minutes per day. This goal may only fit in with the personal and physical areas above, but walking 15 minutes per day will not take much away from the other areas. This can give you huge results and a feeling of accomplishment.
Compile A List Of The Most Critical
Which goals would give you the most pride in yourself?
– Will you feel better if you lose 20 pounds or will you feel better if you spend 20 minutes extra with your son? Keep in mind there is no wrong answer, although being healthy might ultimately give you more time in terms of years with your son.
Which goals have the most permanent results?
– When choosing whether to spend that extra money on your degree, determine how permanent the results will be. Realize that no one can take that degree from you; it will always be an accomplishment. What is it worth?
Estimate What Is Important
Which goals will still impact me in 5 years, or 10 years?
– If you start a business today, and work daily toward meeting the goals of that business, what will be different in five or ten years? How will that impact you now and in the future?
Which goals align with your core values in life?
– Any goal that fits into all four areas of your life is worth pursuing if it also fits into your schedule at the time.
What Goals You Control
Which goals are completely up to you, that you control 100 percent?
– Remember that you cannot control what anyone else does. So if any goal relies on the participation of someone else, and you don’t have their participation, you might want to switch gears and focus on something only you control.
Which goals are just for you?
– Some goals are completely personal in nature and have nothing to do with anyone else. For instance, you might want to read a particular author that has nothing to do with anything but your own pleasure. This is totally alright.
Which goals are just for others?
– There are “shoulds” that often get in the way of proper goal setting and these are goals that are only for other people. Your spouse wants you to lose weight, your mom wants you to go to college, your best friend wants you to start a business. None of these are a good reason to do something, although as long as you know going in why it’s okay to make it a goal.
Are Your Goals Rational?
Which goals cause you the most fear? Why?
– Sometimes the very thing you fear most is what’s best for you to do. Look clearly at your goal and figure out why it frightens you. Sometimes it’s the unknown, and like ripping off a Band-Aid, just doing it might be the best cure.
Which goals make you excited?
– Some goals immediately send tingles down your body and into your mind, pushing you forward to doing it. These are goals that are easy to do and probably impact your life a lot. However, do pay attention because if it’s a goal of becoming the high scorer on a video game you might want to question your “why”.
Which goals are most realistic?
– The best goals to put first are the goals that best fit into your life today, cover all four areas of life, and still fit into your schedule and where you control 100 percent of the effort.
When you answer all these questions, you’ll be able to see how the goals practically organize themselves.
Try making a spreadsheet and adding each goal to the four areas, then choosing the ones that cross the most areas to add to your schedule first.
One of the biggest mistakes people make when seeking to achieve a goal is to wait for inspiration and motivation. Today’s topic of discussion on our series on goals is all about How to Find Motivation to Achieve Your Goals. Imagine if everyone on this planet was waiting for motivation to get work done.
Productivity would drop to nothing, and our economy would collapse. Since productivity has improved over the years, it’s not likely that it has anything to do with real motivation. People are still doing the things they have to do in order to achieve a goal. Aren’t you?
Goals or Motivation?
Sometimes their goals might be set by them or their employer. It doesn’t matter who set it – it’s set, and someone is going to get it done. Am I right? How sad that in some cases people fail at so many things simply by ignoring the fact that motivation isn’t really necessary; only doing is.
They sit around waiting for inspiration to come wondering why everyone else is doing better than them. They’re waiting for some spark of motivation that will never arrive.
You can avoid this issue by realizing the truth.
Motivation Doesn’t Exist But What’s the Intention?
You probably have heard of the myth of the starving artist who can’t paint or the writer with writer’s block. It’s interesting that these creative professions have the same myth. Like weight loss, that some secret motivation has to come to achieve success. Some mysterious spark of inspiration that will get you off your bottom doing what you need to get done. If How to Find Motivation to Achieve Your Goals isn’t possible, then why should you even try?
However, nothing could be further from the truth.
Doing, Not Thinking, Gets You Real Results
Time and again, the people who are truly successful in their own lifetimes, are not people who wait for a spark. They are people who get up out of bed every single day, rain or shine and do things that lead to an end result of success. The successful painter paints every single day and if they hate marketing they hire someone to do that for them.
The successful writer writes; the successful doctor – doctors. If you want to be successful at something, do it. Live it. You will succeed. How to Find Motivation to Achieve Your Goals is basically up to you!
Many people get blocked by thinking that someone is better than, smarter than, or any “than” than them. The truth is, successful people aren’t smarter. Take a look at the most famous actresses that you know. Without exception, they are simply people who do their craft every single day. More times than not, they are simply being themselves in front of the camera. They are doing it, not thinking about doing it, and not dreaming of doing it. They go to auditions, get rejected, and then get up the next day and do it again.
Learn about the acronym S.M.A.R.T which stands for “specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and timely”. Every goal you set should meet that standard. After all, if you cannot be specific enough about what you want so that it can be measured, what is it really? You need to act on it in a realistic manner in a specific time frame. If you can’t it’s not really a goal. It’s a dream – perhaps a pipe dream!
Targets For Your Success
Envision Success
Some people think vision boards are a bunch of hocus pocus. But the truth is, being able to truly visualize yourself experiencing success will go far in helping you actually create success in your life. There are people who are good at seeing it in their mind and believing it, but others need more. Try making a vision board to see your dream down on paper so that you can then decide how to make your S.M.A.R.T. goals.
Follow a Schedule
It can’t be stated enough. Doers do. Successful people do. A “to-do” list isn’t going to cut it; you’re going to need to make a schedule and stick to it. If you want to write a 10,000 word eBook to sell to your target audience, you need to start at the endpoint. Then work your way back to today making a schedule that is realistic. You do this so you can follow it to get the work done when you said you wanted it done. Then let nothing stop you.
Experience Success
Set some smaller goals so that you can feel what success is like. If you’ve never once stuck to anything, you can’t know what success feels like and you have nothing to push you forward. People who experience success like to experience it again. The more success you experience, the more you’re going to realize that you can. It’s self-fulfilling.
Repeat Everything, That’s The Objective
Finally, keep doing it over and over again. With anything, you want to achieve, set the goal, track your success, and do something every single day toward achieving that goal. Again and again. It’s really that simple.
Motivation is a figment of the imagination, and not something that most people have. Most people get up in the morning by hitting the snooze button a few times, and most people do not feel especially happy about doing certain things. What they feel happy about is the end result, the deliverable.
Place your focus there and you will not need any motivation because you will be successful.
If you are looking for help with YOUR motivation, I offer 1×1 mentoring sessions that would help you kick your butt into action. Use this link to schedule a call, I would love to help you figure it out.
In order to set powerful goals that are achievable, take some time to research the dreams you have to find out if they’re even doable. You want to challenge yourself some but don’t make the goals so hard that you experience failure. Continuing with our Goal Series today’s topic is on how to set powerful goals you can achieve.
Goal Criteria
To ensure maximum success, make sure that your goals meet the following criteria:
Match Your Core Values
The more any goal fits into one of the four main areas of life – Family, Financial, Physical, or Personal – the more likely you are to be able to set a realistic goal that you can achieve. If a goal for some reason doesn’t fit into one of your core values, it’s not likely you’ll experience much success.
Be 100 Percent in Control
While goals that rely on others aren’t wrong, they are harder to achieve. Any goal that you control 100 percent is a goal that you can reach. Do ensure that you’re not letting fear get in your way or blaming fate for your failures, though. Self-limiting beliefs can get in your way on this one. Be realistic about whether you have control or not and give yourself more credit. For example, if you think you don’t have control over your financial future because “that’s just how it is,” you are mistaken. You need to eliminate this line of thinking.
Be Able to Envision the Goal
If you can’t see the end result, it will be very difficult to move forward toward achieving the goal. If you need to draw a picture, make a vision board, or take a day off to fantasize, just do it.
You need to see how it will all fit together in the big picture of your life. You need to see the end to be able to truly achieve it.
Every goal you make needs to be very specific in nature. If you really want to be sure to reach the goal, you have to know when you reached it. Instead of saying “I want to start a business,” state exactly what type of business you want to start. Who will be your clients? There is other information that makes the goal more concrete.
2) Be Measurable
At what point have you achieved the goal? If you can’t give a number or something that is measurable, then you won’t have a real goal. Let’s use the business example above. You might include that you want to earn x amount of dollars each week by a certain date. And then how and why you are going to do it.
3) Be Actionable
To achieve any goal there have to be steps that you can take to get there. Like using a map to reach a destination that you want to go to on vacation. You need to draw a map to your vision of success with the steps and paths you’ll take along the way. Put not only what but when, and how you’ll accomplish the step.
4) Be Realistic
You don’t want to write a goal that is too hard to achieve or worse, impossible. Be sure that it’s scientifically possible to do it by researching everything realistically. For example, you’re not likely going to start a business today and earn six figures by tomorrow or even the first year in business. Look at the research and determine what is doable and how you’ll do it.
5) Be Timely
Every goal has to have a time limit otherwise you may never achieve it. Start with the end and work your way back to today. By creating a list of things to do each day, you’ll be able to finally reach the end result. But, do set a time limit. You can adjust as you get into the project if it works to be more realistic. But resist the urge to change the time because you’re not sticking to your task lists. This right here is powerful!
In Conclusion
If you use this method to create powerful goals that you can achieve, you will not experience a lot of failures. You can always adjust your timeline and your goals as you learn more. The important thing is to give each goal a lot of thought, consideration, and study before setting it.
I hope you’re enjoying this series on goal setting. Today’s article on How to Set Powerful Goals You Can Achieve is just one of the many articles in this series.
There is a lot more to goal setting than just picking a goal and moving forward. While that is important, it’s also important to ensure that you are setting the right goals at the right time so that you can truly be successful. In order to ensure that you are setting the right goals for your business, answer the following questions:
Are You Setting Specific and Realistic Goals?
It takes a little research to ensure that a goal is realistic. If you’re not sure if something is actually achievable then you’ve not done enough research. Once you’ve set a goal that is indeed realistic, then you need to be specific enough in your description of it so that it’s also easy. Take the goal and work backward to create a schedule of actions needed to succeed.
Are Your Goals Multifaceted?
Focusing on only one part of your business/life is a bad idea. People live multifaceted lives and need to make goals for all areas of their lives in order to feel successful. If you have a wonderful business but your personal life suffers, then no matter how successful you are, you will not feel successful. Something will always feel as if it’s missing from your life if your goals aren’t inclusive. Therefore, make sure your goals include something from each aspect of your life. Are you setting the right goals for your business?
Scheduling Your Goals
Is Your Scheduling Representative of Real Need?
Once you create the schedule for yourself to reach each goal that you’ve set, you need to truly consider how representative it is of reality. Say your goal is to be healthy and reduce your cholesterol by 10 percent in six months. But, you haven’t set aside the time needed to exercise and eat right. If you don’t schedule the time needed, you won’t succeed because something will always be in your way taking time away from you. It will be very frustrating to practice your schedule because it doesn’t represent reality.
Use your calendar to block out time for each activity. For instance, if you are going to exercise 30 minutes per day, setting aside only 30 minutes isn’t going to be realistic. You’ll probably need to set aside an hour to account for getting ready as well as cooling down or getting cleaned up to go back to work.
Are You Learning from Failure?
Many times when setting goals and creating schedules, instead of learning from failure, people give up. Using the example above, once you implement your schedule to reach the goals that you have set if there are things you’ve forgotten to take into account, don’t give up. Learn from the failure and change the schedule to be more realistic.
You might find that in practice you have to rewrite all your goals and your schedule, but this is perfectly acceptable. Many people believe failure is something negative. The truth is, if you don’t fail sometimes you’re not going to learn much and it’s likely your goals are too easy.
Needs, Wants, Yours, or Someone Else
Do Your Goals Represent Your Needs and Wants or Someone Else’s?
A lot of people set goals that represent what someone else wants instead of what they want. This can really cause a lot of bad feelings and resentment. This can derail the best-laid plans. As you set your goals for your life, ask yourself if they’re really what you want for yourself or what someone else wants for you. Ask yourself if you’re okay with any goal you make for someone else before you embark on your journey.
It’s okay to do things because of someone else, but it’s important that you are honest about that and make some goals for yourself too that don’t involve anyone else’s needs or wants.
Are You Checking in Often to Stay on Track?
Schedules are very important to the success of reaching any goal in life. To-do lists pale in comparison to a well-laid out plan of tasks and activities that get you from point “A” to point “B”. Ensure that you look at your schedule or calendar every morning and every night. Note when you succeed in sticking to your schedule and where you don’t. Noticing a pattern of activity can be helpful in fixing a poorly written schedule as well as staying realistic about whether or not you’re sticking to the plan.
Being Positive And Intentional
Are Your Goals Focused Positively?
When writing a goal, it’s important to write them in a positive way. Or at least in a way that feels positive to you. In the quest to improve your life, try doing this. Write down a goal and then change the words to sound more positive to see if it isn’t more motivating. For instance, “losing weight” seems like a good goal, but for some people, it might signify deprivation. So instead, the person might frame the goal as “improving my BMI by 10 points” or “improving my cholesterol by 10 percent.”
Do You Have Too Many Goals Set at One Time?
Just as setting too few goals can be a problem, so can setting too many. Everyone has a personal life and a business life and points in between. If you have set goals in too many areas of life at once, you might tire yourself out and get overwhelmed. Instead, pick one personal goal, and one other type of goal to focus on. After you reach them, then you can add more goals as time goes on. You don’t need to do everything today. Slow and steady wins the race is a good motto to hang on to.
Setting the right goals for yourself takes some thought and consideration. Don’t try to set all your goals in one day. Instead, set some goals in different stages and in different areas of your life. Give a lot of thought to why you’re making the goal in the first place. It will save you a ton of headaches this way, don’t you think? Are You Setting the Right Goals for Your Business?
If you need assistance with setting your goals, I can help you. Contact me to schedule an appointment. You can use this link -> FREE CALL
Today we’re going to review what Smart Goals actually are and how you can make yours work for your business. So, what is a smart goal? Are you using them in your business? First, let’s find out what the acronym S.M.A.R.T. is all about then we’ll see how you can use them in your business.
When making goals, it’s important to learn about the acronym S.M.A.R.T. It can help you make better goals. Each letter stands for a different area of the goal. If you create a smart goal, you have created a goal that is Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Reasonable, and Timely. Using SMART goals can set you up for success in your goal setting. So, how do you do that?
Let’s see how below:
S – Stands for specific, which means that your goal needs to be spelled out very precisely. Using language that leaves no doubt as to what the goal is, why you want to achieve the goal, and how you will get it is very important. If you are not able to be detailed in your description of the goal, it will be hard to meet it. Take the time to do this part right.
M – Stands for measurable, which means that you should be able to use this as a metric for which to determine success. If your goal can’t be quantified, then it’s not a full goal and you won’t know how to tell when you’ve succeeded. An example of a measurable goal is something like: “I want to add 100 dollars per week of income to our bank by writing five 500-word articles each week for a life coach.”
A – There are different things that “a” can stand for but it’s usually actionable, assignable, or achievable. The preference to really get something good done is to make your goal actionable, meaning something where you can do something for each day that will eventually result in an accomplished goal. Goals should also be achievable or you will only get frustrated. Be accurate about the time it takes to reach a goal, and what actions it takes to get there. Also, know who will be responsible for doing it.
R – This can stand for realistic or relevant, and either or both are important and are true. If you want your goal to succeed, it should most certainly be something that is realistic or you will fail. It should also be relevant to your life’s vision and match your values.
T – Various authors refer to the “T” in the S.M.A.R.T. acronym as time-bound, timely or trackable. All of these t’s are important parts of the goal-creating and setting process. If you don’t set a time limit and you can’t track what is happening, your goal will be hard to quantify or show as achieved.
Whichever words you use to help you craft your goals, the important thing is that you need to have a process to help you make smart goals. Smart goals are goals that you follow through on achieving and know when you’ve met them.
There are many tools out on the market you can use to help you create your goals. Below, we’ll discuss a few of them and how they can help you achieve your business goals.
Goal Setting Tools
You can use old-fashioned paper and pen to make and set your goals, but what’s the fun in that? Today, there are so many wonderful online tools and software that can help make goal setting fun and easy. When something is fun and easy, you’re more likely to stick to it long enough to actually achieve the success you desire.
1. Goal-Buddy – Using this cloud-based software you can name, set, and manage your goals easily. It leads you step-by-step through questions about what your goals are so that they are S.M.A.R.T. (specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and timely) goals. Then you can use the system to track your goals through milestones that you set as the days go by.
2. Mint – If you need to get control over your finances, want to set up goals such as establishing a six-month emergency savings account, starting a business, and other goals, you can use this software to track your financial success and projections.
3. Basecamp – This is really a project management system, but any goal has to have actionable steps involved or milestones and tasks to take to reach success. You can use Basecamp for any type of actionable steps and it will even email you a reminder to do the task. This can work with your business life or personal life.
4. Google Calendar – Where were we before Google Calendar came alone? Unorganized, for sure. This is such a handy calendar that you can use for the most important areas of your life. Be it family, personal, financial, or physical – you can set your goals and work your way back inserting actionable steps and tasks to do each day. You can then let it email you a daily task list so you never leave anything out.
5. VisonBoard.me – This is basic vision board software that you can use to create your vision board and then print it out. You can also use something like Pinterest to create a vision board if you need to be fancier about it. It’s fun to create a vision board, and paste it on your wall, fridge, or in public so that you can see the reality of your dreams in person.
6. Lifetick – If you want a very in-depth goal-setting software, this is it. It helps you traverse the four important areas where you should be setting goals and then view how they overlap and work with each other. This software helps you define your core values, and develop S.M.A.R.T. goals as well as track everything.
7. GoalsOnTrack – This software is a lot like Lifetick but has features that help you “chunk down” any goal into reasonable and easy-to-follow steps. Their whole idea is that you want to do less but get more. This software’s features encompass the 80/20 rule and puts it to work for goal setting and achievement.
8. Goalscape – If you like to visualize your goals in pictures, charts, and graphs then you might like Goalscape. You’ll create a kind of wheel with your goal in the middle and everything you need to do to reach the goal will circle it. So you can see it in one glance.
9. Smart Goals Templates – If you like templates, these are some free goal-setting templates that are based on filling in the blanks for your goals. They will help you go over the various goals-setting steps needed to achieve results in both your personal life and career and business life.
10. Fingerprint for Success – Fingerprint for Success is a professional & personal development platform for individuals & teams to make amazing things happen at work and in life! Coach Marlee is the world’s first artificially intelligent coach! Marlee specializes in developmental and performance coaching. Based on decades of evidence-based research into human development.
Whichever type of software (if any) you feel you need to use for goal setting and goal realization is up to you. The important thing is that you visualize the results of any goal, write it out, and then take steps toward achieving the goal.
Looking for help with YOUR Goals? I’d be happy to help you. Contact me here
Today’s topic is Setting S.M.A.R.T. Business Goals. You have probably come across many articles, books, and audios that stress the importance of setting goals. Hopefully, you have taken the time to sit down and write out goals for yourself. But are you writing S.M.A.R.T. goals? S.M.A.R.T. goals are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Related. I’m starting a new series of Setting Goals so the first one is Setting S.M.A.R.T. Business Goals. So get your pencils sharpened and your notebook ready because you are going to want to take notes for this series. Make sure you download the free e-book about goal setting also. You can locate it here ->>> Setting S.M.A.R.T. Business Goals
Specific Goals
Specific Goals are written out clearly and have a set time frame. When you write out your goals, state what you want, and give it a deadline. A simple goal of “earning money by working from home” becomes much more motivational if you phrase it as “earning $500 per month on a regular basis within sixty days”. Once you know what your plan is, it will be easier to achieve it.
Measurable Goals
It is important to have Measurable Goals, as they will help you track your progress. If a goal is not measurable, it will be very hard to define when you have actually achieved it. In the example above, by defining how much income you want to earn and giving it a time frame, you will know instantly when those sixty days are over if you have achieved the goal.
Attainable Goals
An Attainable Goal is a goal you know you can achieve. Don’t be fooled by the word “attainable”. It can still be a challenging goal and require effort to achieve, but it does need to be something you can do. For instance, if your goal is to learn to build websites and you have absolutely no experience, your goal shouldn’t be to build a huge, portal website in a week. An attainable goal would be giving yourself a month to learn the software and build a small, but functioning website. Otherwise, you will be putting pressure on yourself. If you are constantly setting unattainable goals, you may end up doubting yourself and become so afraid of failure that you start procrastinating on easy tasks. Make sure you’re on target to reach these goals.
Realistic Goals
While it is great to shoot for the stars when you are setting your goals, they also need to be Realistic Goals. Using the first example, the goal wasn’t to earn $500 within a week. Instead, the goal was to earn $500 per month within sixty days. If you are new to working from home, it may take some time for your business to be profitable. Instead of setting one huge goal, break the goal down into manageable “mini-goals”.
Time-Related Goals
You may have noticed that the example goals were Time-Related. There is an old saying that “a goal without a deadline is just a wish”. Having a defined timeline will keep you motivated. If you have an open-ended goal, it will be easier to procrastinate, and therefore, harder to accomplish. However, knowing you need to accomplish something in a set period of time will spur you into action.
What are YOUR S.M.A.R.T. Goals? Use this handy sheet to create yours. Worksheet
gabrielle_cc / Pixabay
Your Intentions
Setting S.M.A.R.T. Goals is really important to your business. It’s just like a roadmap to help you follow where you want your business to go. Don’t just make things up on the fly, let me tell you now, it doesn’t work. Sit down today and work on the worksheet to plan your goals. You’ll be glad you did!
If you’d like help setting up your goals, you can contact me to set up an appointment to discuss. Go here —> Discovery Call to schedule an appointment.
Someone once said: “Your life will begin changing the moment you decide that you want it to.” And so it is with organizing too! Organizing your marketing efforts will help you succeed, just ask other business owners.
I’ve found that the same is true for growing your business. If you want to see different results than what you’ve seen in the past, you must make a heartfelt decision to do things differently. You need to start with making over your mindset and start organizing.
Mental blocks can hold you back and keep you from achieving your goals. When you sit down to work on your business are you clear and focused, or is your mind cluttered with ideas, client requests, overdue items and more?
The FIRST step to achieving your goals is de-cluttering and organizing your mind. When you do this, you’ll be able to clearly define what you want to accomplish and start taking the necessary action to achieve your goals.
It’s a long to-do list. Right? Too many ideas for marketing your business, missed opportunities, and a constant state of overwhelm that’s running your life. Don’t you think it’s time to clear out the old and get organized? When you do this, you’ll find that it’s easier to focus on marketing your business consistently and effectively.
Here are seven simple practices that you can use NOW to help you with your organization:
1- The first thing to do is to document EVERYTHING! Yes, you heard me right…
When your brain is busy trying to keep track of the many details that are floating around your head, you begin to feel stressed out and overwhelmed. Write down everything! Get a notebook if you prefer the pen and paper type of note-taking, or use Evernote. No matter how you do it – start documenting every aspect of how you run and market your business. Getting it all out of your head and onto paper is going to relieve a tremendous amount of stress.
Apart from your procedures and to-do list notebook, you should create a space where you can write down all of your new ideas. Entrepreneurs have no problem generating great new ideas. But it’s far too easy to forget about them or allow them to distract you from your profit plan. Keeping your ideas in one spot will make it easy for you to refer back to those ideas often so you can actually implement them. Imagine how you can increase your profits when you start taking action on your great ideas?
If your daily task list is in 7 different spots, you’re going to feel distracted and scattered. Keep everything in one list – there are countless options, so just choose one and stick with it! Once you’ve picked the best option for you, commit to using this one system for your tasks and projects. Using a web-based system will make it easy to delegate tasks to other people and help you organize an effective system.
4- Plan ahead with your content
Many entrepreneurs feel stuck with marketing because they aren’t sure what to do. Just start with one month – plan out what you’ll be doing in the upcoming month. Pick a date to publish each piece, plan out the theme for your content and jot down some ideas for your newsletter, blog posts or social media updates. When you sit down to write your marketing materials you’ll crank out your content quickly and easily. This will also help you to stay organized.
5- Create a Master Schedule Template
If you find yourself looking back at the end of the week and wondering where the time went, you need to implement this right away! Using a weekly calendar, you can designate blocks of time where you’ll work on certain aspects of your business. For example, reserve Monday from 9 am to 12 pm for marketing, 1 pm to 3 pm for writing, 3 pm to 5 pm for email management, and so on. Start by inserting recurring tasks (like client meetings, marketing times, meeting with your coach, etc.) and then designate other blocks of time for your other activities. Don’t leave your essential tasks to chance! Make a plan for when you’ll do them and you’ll boost your productivity. Daily Plan Sample [Click to Download]
6- Set clear boundaries
Once you get this support system into place, you need to follow through and stick with it! Commit to yourself that you’ll honor what you’ve set out to do. Turn off email notifications and other distractions. Make sure that friends and family know when you’re available to chat. You can also create accountability for yourself by working with a coach or mentor to help you.
Marketing and growing your business isn’t impossible – but it does require planning and consistency to work. When you de-clutter your mind and organize your materials, you will be able to see the results you’ve been looking for and fully enjoy a successful business.
So, which organizing tip will you implement first? Please share your thoughts with me in the comments!
YOUR “TAKE ACTION” PLAN FOR THIS WEEK:
1. Plan a “brain dump” – Take time this week to get everything out on paper – all of your “to-dos,” all of your big ideas for growing your business, all of your client projects – everything. When you write it all down you’ll be able to get it off your mind and develop a plan for getting things done.
2. Get organized – Create digital files on your computer for all your important documents. Also, anything you deem important, such as graphics, articles you need to write, backup files for your website, just to mention a few. I’m sure you can think of others as you go through your computer. You’ll save time each day and boost your productivity just by knowing where everything is located.
3. Master your schedule – Set time aside each week in hourly blocks for all of the things you need to do – including marketing your business. You’ll be more productive, waste less time, and get more done.
4. Plan ahead – Write down your content focus for the next month and brainstorm ideas for blog topics, social media conversations, and newsletter articles. Then sit down to write at your designated time and get your content into the hands of the people who need you!
5. Set boundaries – Let friends and family know when you’ll be available to chat and commit to sticking with your master schedule. You’ll eliminate distractions and increase your profitability.
GO…Do it NOW! You will be so thankful that you did this for your growing business.
Remember to contact me if I can help in any way. Your business really needs organization and I can provide that service to you.
Today we are discussing life in general, but more importantly what you can learn when your life is in shambles. I can hear you saying, “Well, nobody’s life is perfect“, but what if something horrible happens to you or someone you know?
Life can be terribly revealing, can’t it? You can learn to live with disappointment, you just have to acknowledge that you can.
I really love this quote:
“Every event in life can be causing only one of two things. Either it is good for you, or it’s bringing up what you need to look at in order to create good for you.”Deepak Chopra
No one wants to go through transitions, but we all will. Things must change because we are growing, evolving beings. We are here to learn what lessons we need to reach our full potential. You want that too, right?
So it may not be all fun and games. But if we want, we can learn important lessons that will serve us well as we move through tough changes.
Let me explain…
What is Really Important in Life – and What you Can Learn
When things are status quo, we believe the big, external things in life are what matter. What kind of car we drive, what our job title is, and how much money we have in the bank. These are all that seem to matter during our normal daily lives. But when “tragedy” strikes and we lose something of true value, it helps us reassess what is really important in life.
We shift our thinking and start spending time with those people and doing those things that make us really happy. Instead of just following our routine, we go out of our way to do things for other people.
That Fear Doesn’t Need to Hold you Back
So often, we feel we have too much to lose to take a big risk and change something we desire to be different. But when it all falls apart, no matter how we try to keep it together, our greatest fears come true.
We see that we really have much less to lose than we thought and that being delightfully happy is worth the risk. We can stop letting fear hold us back and take a plunge into what we’ve always really wanted.
Letting Go of STUFF is Freeing
We hang onto stuff like it’s a life raft. It can be material things, people, or situations that deep down we know is no longer making us happy. Often we are just too scared to let it go. When life forces our hand and we lose what we thought we couldn’t live without, we can finally feel free.
Free from holding on so tightly that we focus all of our energy on holding on instead of re-evaluating if we really want it in the first place.
You DON’T Have to be Perfect
We spend so much energy trying to be perfect every day of our lives. We beat ourselves up over the tiniest little flaw or mistake. All this struggling is exhausting! And ultimately, the best we can do is to pretend that everything is perfect in our world. Because we are never going to get to a stage where everything is perfect.
When you share your experiences with others whom you trust, you will start to see their masks come down. You will hear about how imperfect their lives are, and yet see that they are still happy.
In the comments below, how does this make you feel? I would be so interested to hear your perspective.
Gratitude journaling is a popular tool used by coaches and consultants helping people to improve their health and lives. Studies have shown the benefits of mental and physical health. If you are considering whether this could be something that could help you then you probably have questions about what you need and how to do it. Gratitude journaling is actually very low cost and fairly simple.
You will need:
Writing implements: You could use a pen or pencil but why not increase the fun and creative aspect of your journaling by adding color and even texture. Different colored pens or pencils, as well as different styles, can make your gratitude journal not just a record of thanks but also a really creative endeavor.
Notebook: While you could use a piece of paper, keeping a special notebook for your gratitude journal ensures that you will know exactly where you are writing and allows you to review previous gratitude records. Your notebook can be a plain and simple one or you could splash out on a more decorative one. However, why not consider using a plain notebook and jazzing it up yourself.
By decorating a plain notebook or making a book from scratch you are making a greater commitment to the project itself. Your notebook will mean more to you and you will feel a greater connection to it when you use it. After all, if you are writing positive thoughts inside it, you also want to feel happy and proud when you see it.
Time Alone: By taking time out away from disturbances you are giving yourself space to think, relax, and write. You’ll also find that you enjoy the experience of being alone and celebrating those things you are thankful for.
Now you know what you need it’s time to discover how to do it.
Writing Time
Collect your journal and whatever you’ve chosen to write with.
Find somewhere quiet and that you know you won’t be disturbed. Your journaling time should be a time for reflection and celebration free from outside distractions for the best results.
Ensure you are committed to gratitude journaling and that you want to feel happier as well as more grateful as a result. There is no point in just going through the motions of journaling without creating a positive meaningful emotional experience.
When you write, instead of creating a long list of things you are grateful for put some real thought into it. Take time to write about a particular event and describe in detail why you are thankful for it. Remember to record how you felt and why.
Try to include people you are thankful for as much as you can, not just events. By including specific people and the reasons you are thankful for them you will create a greater emotional impact. It becomes more personal.
Include surprises and unexpected events as these will create a stronger sense of gratitude and a more significant emotional impact.
Time to Reflect
Set yourself a weekly date to write in your gratitude journal. While you could journal every day it may be more beneficial to create a habit of writing in your gratitude journal once a week. This will allow you to plan for it and enjoy it.
There are no right or wrong ways to keep a gratitude journal. Everyone’s will be different. However, it is important that you are committed to the process and the outcome, as well as make time for it on a regular basis.
This is the last article in the Journaling Series. I hope you’ve enjoyed what you’ve read and can put it into practice as you go about your life. Remember, you can write all about what you’re grateful for in your business also. Writing in a journal is not just about your personal life. Make it interesting, you might want to go back and read your journal at the end of the year just to see how far you’ve come. I bet you’d be surprised by what you find out about yourself.
