Goal setting is a total weakness of mine. I’ve never been very good at reaching my goals. I’m a planner person and can design or organize something all day long, but implementing it trips me up every single time.
Raise your hand if you’re in the same boat with me. Well, this post is for you today because I’ve discovered the secret to getting more done and accomplishing my goals.
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It’s so easy, you’ll wish you would have realized these easy steps for goal setting years ago. Imagine where you could be already, how much you could have already accomplished in this life if you would have already known the secret to being productive and achieving your goals!
I know, right? Me, too.
I’ve discovered a 6 step process that isn’t hard to do at all, but you can’t skip any of the steps if you want to actually start making real progress toward your goals.
Ready to revolutionize your goal setting skills?!
1 Priorities
Set your priorities. What is important to you? Where do you want to be in 5 years? or 10 years? Do you want to be working from home? Do you want to be out of debt? Or owning your own business? This is the thing that you always dreamed of. It is your pipe dream drilled down to some values.
Our family goals are to find a career/job for my husband that continues to pay enough for our bills and to let him work from home. And my personal pipe dream goal is to make enough money blogging that he doesn’t need to find a different job to be able to work from home. He can work for me! 😉
2 Goals
Set some goals based on those priorities. Here is where you assign some hard facts and figures to those priorities to take them from the dreaming stage to the goals stage. One of my goals could be to make $30K per year blogging in 3 years from now.
But don’t just come up with any ol’ goal. There are rules here, people!
You want your goals to be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) goals.
- Make them specific.
- Give them something you can measure with ($30K).
- Make sure they’re achievable (other bloggers make more in their first year even, so I think it’s possible).
- Relevant means make sure they’re realistic for your life (blogging would not be a realistic goal if I didn’t have internet access).
- Give them a deadline and make them time-bound (in 3 years).
3 Focus Area
Define an area to focus on. Work backward from your goal to define focus areas and figure out what you need to do to accomplish your goals. What steps can you take or areas can you focus on to make progress towards your goals?
This is where I always got stuck before. Listen to me. This part is not hard. It isn’t. You just need to do some research to find out what is going to get you to your final destination.
In my example, I’ve learned I need to master Pinterest, and email lists to grow my traffic. The traffic will bring the income as I grow and learn in blogging (through a variety of possible avenues, but they all begin with Pinterest traffic and email lists). I also need more content. These are three areas that I can focus on to achieve my goals. (Pinterest, email list, content creation).
4 Actionable Steps
Identify actionable steps. Now for each focus area, drill down a little bit more to identify actionable steps. Think more task-oriented now. What can you do to work through the focus areas in Step 3? For me, I can build my email list by implementing a service to capture emails, provide an incentive with an email opt-in, and keep my email list active by sending out regular emails (1x/week) to my subscribers.
That’s a basic list, but it’s a great start to creating steps that can move me toward honing in my goal focus. As I implement those steps, I will be ready to learn more in-depth actionable steps I can take to work towards those goals.
I also make it a point to add a checklist to my actionable steps. This small addition can make a huge difference in your motivation to keep going. You get immediate positive reinforcement every time you check that box.
5 Deadline
Give those actionable steps a deadline. Just having a task on a to-do list is oftentimes not enough motivation to get it done. Giving it a deadline will make it real and increase your productivity.
Due dates make the world go ’round. Think about it.
6 Re-evaluate
Pause to re-evaluate often. As you begin to accomplish some of your actionable steps and complete progress in your focus areas, you need to keep that momentum going! Step back and have a look at your progress. Celebrate your wins (hello, dance parties!) and adjust the areas that are still lacking.
There is a chance that you are having trouble in an area because your strategy needs tweaking or possibly even that focus area wasn’t appropriate for this phase in reaching your goals. Don’t be afraid to adjust your plan as you move along and make progress. You can’t see the entire route until you get on the road!
Now, see? Wasn’t that easy?
This 6 step strategy to achieving your goals might sound easy. That’s because it IS easy! You can totally do this.
Don’t let yourself get stuck with those mental roadblocks along the way. Just do a little more research and work through it when you start to get stuck. And if you aren’t sure what to write down, just write down something. Something that will get you toward your goal.
It might be to research something or interview someone who knows the secrets you need to know. Information gathering and exploration is still considered working towards your goals if you’re making progress!
If you’re ready to start implementing this 6 step strategy to achieving your goals, you might want to grab my goal setting worksheet. It’s part of my printable planner, but I’m letting you download my favorite goal setting worksheets in the planner for free!
Because let’s be honest. I wish I would have had this bad boy years ago!! And I wanna help a sister out!
If you wanna help your sister out, share this post so your friends and followers can start making progress towards their goals, too!
I have a love/hate relationship with setting goals…this is perfect and really helpful!
Me, too, Jackie! That’s why I needed this goal setting worksheet. 😀 I hope it helps you!