It’s Time For A Whole New Way To Think About Your Goals

Ready for a change? Accomplish 100% of your goals this year with this new approach. You just might be amazed at what happens next.

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Do you ever wish you could just hit the reset button and start over?

Maybe you started this year off with a big goal or dream. A clear vision of where your life was going and how your days were going to run. You started off feeling great – this was going to be your year!

But 2020 seemed to have a different plan, didn’t it?

With everything at a standstill, it was pretty easy to feel like the world was telling you to throw your hands up because “who knows when this will end so why would you even try to make a plan?”

And that’s when things started to slip. Time slowed down, the kids started schooling at home, and the laundry kept piling up. And after a while, you became discouraged and decided to throw any hope of productivity out the window.

Okay, maybe it’s not that bad.

But chances are, you might be feeling a little defeated, realizing you didn’t make as much progress as you’d hoped for this year. Perhaps you didn’t have as much time to work on your goals, or maybe you forgot about them completely.

Because, as much as you love having more time with your kids, it’s just so much harder to get anything done with everyone home all the time.

(Or maybe that’s just me.)

In any case, if you’re ready for a change, I hope you can join me and say NO. No, to giving up. No to giving in to chaos. And no to staying stuck.

Because while there’s not much you can do to control what happens OUTSIDE of your home right now, you can get back into the groove INSIDE.

And that, my friend, is why it’s time to completely change how you think about your goals. Not because you should lower the bar, but because you deserve a new, fresh start.

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A NEW APPROACH TO SETTING GOALS

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Whenever we start feeling the urge to change, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of resolutions, especially with phrases like “I’m going to stop…” and “I’m going to start…”. But before you pull out a notebook and get busy making plans, we need to talk.

Because resolutions simply don’t work. Not in the traditional sense anyway. Instead, let’s rethink the concept of goal-setting.

What is it that you want to accomplish this year? What’s important to you?

If you want to make these goals a reality, you’re going to need a little mindset shift. One that will allow you to let go of those guilt-filled, fleeting resolutions, and adopt a new way of doing things.

Then, wherever you are in life, and whatever your goals, you can start to move the needle, because you are choosing to embrace purpose, priorities, and the fact that progress is always more important than perfection.

Here are 5 ways to do just that:

1. Don’t add more to your plate.

Christmas might be about adding more to your plate, but goals shouldn’t be.
Because goals won’t change your life. Choosing what matters will. Goals are just how we get there.

So rather than starting with the “big dream” and taking it all on at once, figure out what really matters to you. If you’ve got things in your life that keep you from working on that, let them go. They’re nothing more than a distraction.

You only get 24 hours each day. Choose wisely.

2. Throw away pressure goals.

Speaking of those “big dream” goals, why are they in your thoughts? Are they truly important to you, or were they born out of comparison, fear, chasing perfection, or trying to keep up with something?

If they are, there’s a good chance they won’t come to pass.

Traditional “goal talk” tells us that our worth hinges on the presence (or lack) of performance. It’s no wonder we lose steam when things get hard.

But when our goals are our own – when they truly matter to us – we can see that progress is far more important than perfection. And that’s a good thing because progress is often a spiral.

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3. Don’t wing it

Your goals and your life matter enough to be taken seriously. So take the time to thoughtfully create a concrete plan of action – and then write it down.

Did you know we are 42% more likely to achieve our goals simply by writing them down? That’s a pretty big return for such a small effort.

And don’t stop there…find a way to track your progress.

Not only will this keep you motivated and help you remember to work on your goals, but you’ll be able to see how far you’ve come. That can sure come in handy on those 1-step-forward-2-steps-backward-kind-of-days.

4. Start with why

In his book Start With Why, Simon Sinek says, “Charisma has nothing to do with energy; it comes from a clarity of WHY. Energy, in contrast, comes from a good night’s sleep or lots of caffeine. Energy can excite. But only charisma can inspire.”

You may have heard of SMART goals. They’re an incredibly effective way to crush your goals.

But here’s something you may not have heard: Even SMART goals fail. This is simply because they’re missing the key ingredient – purpose.

With purpose, you’ll be able to keep going no matter how many times you mess up. Without it, you’ll most likely jump ship at the first sign of imperfection.

5. Celebrate tiny wins

Consistent, small efforts add up. (Even if all the effort you can muster in a day is to put one foot in front of the other.)

So when you have an idea of where you want to go, just start! Get the momentum going while the excitement is fresh. You can come back and write down a plan later.

Don’t be afraid to start small. Because if you can just start, you’ll be ready to take the next step, and then the next. You can let each tiny win motivate you to keep going.

And then you just surprise yourself with what you can do.

THIS CAN BE YOUR YEAR

It’s tempting to wait until the new year to start dreaming big. And it’s easy to give up and wait until the next distant starting point when we start to fall off the wagon.

But why do we have to wait for any official starting point? Why not start now?

It doesn’t matter if it’s January 1st or 10:32 on a Wednesday morning in the middle of April – you can start making progress and seeing change right now.

Here’s the thing: 2020 happened to all of us. And you’re definitely not alone if you’re feeling frustrated as you look back on the year, especially if you didn’t make as much progress as you’d hoped for.

But like Ruth Bader Ginsberg once said, “So often in life, things that you regard as an impediment turn out to be great, good fortune.”

We’ve still got a lot of time at home. And we can use it to do incredible things for ourselves and our families.

We simply have to start.

Speaking of worthwhile goals, The Peaceful Parent Starter Guide will show you how to begin creating simple systems in your life so you can become a more calm and confident parent!

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