Back HomeGoal Setting – 5 Tips to Help You Achieve Your Goals
December 16th, 2014 by keithandkinsey
Whether you are saving for a down payment on a house or trying to lose a few pounds, setting specific goals is a great way to ensure you achieve what you want to accomplish. I recently hit one of my goals for 2014, which was a fitness goal of running 300 miles and working out 130 times within the year. It’s always a great feeling when you hit that mark you have been working for all year.
If you aren’t a goal setter, I encourage you to try it. Goals are a great way to improve your life. The difficulty is most people don’t set goals in a way that force them to stick to them. Most people just have some rough ideas in their head of things they want to accomplish, and most of the time they never follow through. There are 5 key things that will help you follow through with your goals:
Write it down. Without your goals in writing, they will simply slip away as ideas and dreams.
Have someone hold you accountable. If you have a friend or family member that knows your goals ask them to check in on you occasionally to see how you are doing.
Make it measurable. Without a way to measure your goal you don’t know when you achieved it. This is the difference between saying I want to lose weight, and I want to lose 10 lbs. The 10 lbs gives you something to go by.
Give it a timeline. Without a date to achieve something by, you’re not pushed to make it happen. To add to item 3, you might say, I’m going to lose 10 lbs by the end of March.
It must be realistic. Make goals that push you a bit, but make them realistic. For example if you are saving for a down payment on your first house, don’t set your goal at 75% of your income. Instead plan a monthly budget, tighten up the spending, and set a monthly (or weekly) savings amount that actually fits within your budget.
Using these methods, I set as bunch of goals this year in several different categories; Business, Financial, Spiritual, Intellectual, Family, Social, & Physical. This may be overkill for some, but give it a try, it’s paid off for me. I met most of my goals for the year. However, there was a few that fell short on. Those goals that I didn’t quite meet were still beneficial, without them, I wouldn’t have had anything pushing me or reminding me that I needed to step things up a bit.
Post in the comments a few of your goals, and we’ll try to help hold you accountable! Have a great new year! Bring on 2015!
