The Best Way to Set and Hit Your Goals
Inspiration is fleeting and willpower isn’t enough.
Inspiration is fleeting and willpower isn’t enough. How well we set goals will determine our success.
One moment we are inspired and ready to put forth massive action toward our goals. The next moment we are overwhelmed, not sure where to begin, and not even sure our goals are realistic in the first place; so we reach for the first distraction we can find.
How are you ever going to make progress toward your goals?
1. Tell the Voice In Your Head to Shut Up
Our fears, doubts, and insecurities live in our minds. Living inside our own heads is a critical voice that is constantly telling us who we are not, where we are weak, and what is realistic.
As long as this voice is running the show it will take extreme amounts of willpower for us to move forward. We will have to push and force ourselves to take action and go against what the voice in our heads is telling us.
In our heart, lives our values and intention. There is no critical voice and what we find instead is an inner compass that guides our intuition towards what we want in our lives.
When we let our hearts lead the way we put the critical voice in its proper place. We are not our thoughts and the sooner we realize this the better.
Tell the voice in your head to shut the hell up so that you can pursue your goals unencumbered by its bullshit.
2. Get More Clear Than You Already Are On What You Desire
If you are like me, you probably have some ideas of what you want to do or create. But that’s where most of us stop. We are left with vague ideas and big mountains to climb.
Invest the time to get more specific with your ideas. Set aside 45-minutes with a pen and paper and write out what you want your life to look like in 5 years.
You are not trying to answer the impossible question: “who am I?” Defining every jot and tittle of your life is not the goal. But what you are doing is reflecting on your values and writing down how you would like them to manifest in your life.
What do you want life to look like for you in your family, finances, community, and profession? How would you prioritize them?
This is a great approach because when we view our lives in a bubble we can’t see what’s most important. We are not our titles, our incomes, or our stature.
What we are: is a friend, a husband, wife, a mom, a dad. We also have our professions where we add value and a community we serve. Among these also are our passions.
How clear are you on what you want your life to look like? How would you define success?
3. Clarify the Results You Want to Create In Each Area of Your Life
After doing this exercise, you will have likely identified the key areas of your life. Things like faith, family, finances, community, and your profession.
An excel spreadsheet works well here. Put each of these key areas into their own rows. You will be applying a framework called AIM SMART planning, taught to me by Jeff Czernicki of Perpetual Compass Coaching.
CLICK HERE to download my FREE AIM SMART planning template — you’ll also get updates on new articles I publish straight to your inbox. I won’t send you spam and it’s easy to unsubscribe.
AIM SMART
Start by writing out a short vision for the results you want to create in each of the key areas you’ve identified. For example, you may have written:
Finances: Maintain a debt-free lifestyle, where we spend our money on what aligns with our values, not our impulse.
Now that you know what you are shooting for its time to evaluate where you are today. Maybe today, you have $40,000 of student loans, a car payment, and a little bit of a spending problem.
It’s now a good time to remind yourself that you’ve told the voice in our head to shut the hell up. Don’t listen to it!
If you did it would be telling you that you don’t make enough money, that you need to spend money on this, that, and the other, — blah, blah, blah.
It’s time to AIM. In your spreadsheet create 3 columns next to the key area you’ve identified. Label them Acceptable, Ideal, and Middle.
Here’s what I want you to write for each using the SMART format making your goals specific, measurable, achievable, results-focused, and time-bound:
Acceptable
You’ve assessed your current reality and you’ve also identified the result you want to create. Here is where you write out a goal that is a little bit challenging.
For our example, it might be to save $100 per month by cooking at home instead of eating out and to create a budget for your top spending areas.
An acceptable goal here is doing just a little bit better than you are doing today.
Ideal
In this box, we are going to write what’s most ideal. We write what we want most. For your finances, you might write something bold like save $1000 per month and become debt free in the next 12 months.
While this is ideal, you’d have to put a lot of your life on hold and you are not quite sure you want to do that.
Middle
You’ve just identified a goal from both ends of the spectrum: doing just a little and doing a lot to the point it almost feels impossible. In this box, write a goal that is between the two.
It might include what you’ve written in the acceptable column along with additional areas you will save money in as well as a certain amount of extra you will pay toward your student loans.
You want to aim for the middle. Acceptable is too easy, and ideal is too much of a leap to take in your current situation.
I know there will be someone out there who will disagree and tell you to 10x your life — I don’t care. This is about making progress in the most sustainable and consistent way possible.
Progress will lead to winning which will turn into momentum toward achieving your goals.
4. What is Your Next Step?
Once you’ve identified your goal by aiming for the middle, the next step is to simply choose your next step. Just like our goals you want it to be a SMART next step.
Willpower will only help us get started and the clearer you are on what you are going to do as your next step the easier you can use a little discipline to get started.
Think in 20-minute chunks. We can all find 20 minutes after the kids go to bed or our other work is done to take action on what we want to create.
Think in small bite-sized increments. Rather than writing: create a budget by the end of the day, write: set aside 20 minutes on my calendar right now where I will spend it identifying the key areas I spend money. That’s it!
The process continues after you’ve completed this. Ask again, “what’s my next step?”
Its normal for this framework to start out slow. But over time it will become a consistent process that you intuitively apply to all areas of your life.
Here is Your Next Step…
You’ve told the voice to shut up and let your values inform your vision. Next, you got clear on a framework you can use to AIM SMART at your goals. You know the importance of always identifying your next step.
Your next step is to download my free goal planning template. Use this as a guide where you will fill in the boxes and create your agenda to creating what you want most in all areas of your life.
Make this your next step…do it now!
CLICK HERE to download my FREE AIM SMART planning template
you’ll also get updates on new articles I publish straight to your inbox. I won’t send you spam and it’s easy to unsubscribe.
