I am a firm believer that goal-setting can be a very powerful tool to get things done and keep you focused on your core values. I spent a lot of time making my goals for this year, and I want to accomplish as many of them as possible by December 31st, I will not be satisfied with 50% success rate.
The first thing I did with my goals is to make as many of my goals quantifiable as possible, because goals should be measurable. A few of mine were vague-er notions, and so I brainstormed how I would know if I was successful and what I could do to make that happen.
The most important thing I did was to make my 2013 goals a part of my daily life. I don’t want my goals to be things I forget about until the next time I blog about them. So I wrote them out on a piece of paper and hung that up on my wall. Now I can see my goals every single day. (and because my apartment is so small I can see it from my bed, table, desk, couch, etc.)
This is a huge improvement over what I have done in past years, when I have literally forgotten about my goals partway through the year. It’s much harder to accomplish your goals if you can’t even remember what they are!
So when I am pondering what to do next in my day I can look over at my list and make sure that the task I choose is in line with my priorities. At a glance I can see how much progress I have made towards my goals. This motivates me to do more.
Some of my goals are going better than expected, but some are completely stalled and I haven’t yet lifted a finger. Over the month of February, I’m going to review all of my 2013 goals here on the blog. Some will hopefully motivate me to keep doing a good job by making me accountable. And hopefully embarrassment about how little I have done on some will motivate me to do something! I’ll probably start with the goals I’m less embarrassed about.
What have I done to make my goals happen? I’ve started. That’s the single most important thing. Starting them early (or earlier than anticipated). I’m trying to knock as much of them out now so I can either relax or exceed on the second half of the year. Keeping the list of goals with me helps me always keep them in focus, so I know exactly what I need to do, or what I need to be working on.
Great plan! I didn’t make yearly goals, but make fairly long & detailed monthly goals that I go over weekly (if I remember) and try to accomplish them each month.