Happy New Year! Goal Setting is a Marathon, Not a Sprint

Happy New Year! This is the time of the year when most people get really excited about the new year, a new slate, a new book to write their story, and a new planner.  We come up with these really elaborate goals and resolutions. Then, about mid-February we have tossed most of them aside.

Now to be honest, I have already broken one of my goals for the year, but it’s okay - it’ll give me something to work towards! One of my goals is to learn and work towards not staying up all night and binge reading. I was to focus on reading an hour or two a night instead of the whole book. I blew that over the weekend, but hey, I had a good book! 

We have these great goals. We have these great plans. They’re ambitious, they are larger than life, and we’re really excited about them. And then we get stuck.

The best thing I have found for me, and hopefully you will too, is to take my big goals and break them down into 4 smaller steps - one for each quarter. I then break the 90 day goals into monthly goals, and then come up with weekly goals. I set up incremental goals and steps that I can take during that week to work towards my goals. Doing this, I have a better chance of staying with the momentum. I have a better chance of actually succeeding and accomplishing my goals. If this isn’t a practice you have started, I encourage you to do so.

I will be honest with you, it can get me overwhelmed at times. To help with that, I have to get out of my head and just think about what is the big goal and how can I break it down. Otherwise, I can get lost and will start turning and thinking if I did this, what if that happens. I take a deep breath and remember that it is okay. The goals can be changed, we are flexible, we work on pivoting. We did that all last year - we are pros at it now! 

Ask yourself, what is it that you want your big goal to look like? And then break it down. What would that look like each quarter, then for those 3 months of the quarter, and then for each week.

Every Sunday I like to spend time planning what it is I want to work on during that week. I learned this from Brendon Burchard. This way I have an idea, I am focused, I know what I want to do, and I know what my goals are for that week. I then have a better chance of following through. I am sure you have as well (and if not, I applaud you) have gotten to Friday and found you have done nothing towards working on your goals and asked yourself what happened to the week.  Now sometimes it may be due to life’s circumstances, but most often it’s due to lack of planning. 

Being able to keep moving forward and breaking down your goals incrementally so they are doable and doesn’t seem overwhelming creates a much better chance for you to succeed. We can have the best goals but if we don’t take action, we will not succeed.

Wishing you all the best in 2021!
Denise