Set your goals
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Put your hand up if you are constantly envisioning a better life for yourself.
Put your hand up if you are willing to work hard on yourself to achieve your desired results.
Put your hand up if you aren’t sure where to start because starting always seems like the hard part.
I’ve been in your position; let me tell you what I did.
Around this time last year, I felt my life didn’t have much direction. I was working toward a promotion at work because it was the next step up the ladder. I’d kept working my way up because I was good at my job, I wanted to earn more money and honestly, the thought of working anywhere else seemed terrifying to me. So when I didn’t get that promotion at work it felt like the end of the world.
For roughly 6 years I had two main goals in life. One had been to progress within my role at work. The reason this was so important to me was that my other main goal was that I desperately wanted to buy my own house. Therefore not getting a promotion forced me to reexamine my life and ask myself if this was really what I wanted or if I was just doing it because I felt I should.
So I gave it a couple of weeks to figure out what my new career path would be. I knew it had to be something that would get me excited, I'd need to be fully invested in it and passionate about it. Fast forward to now, I’m pursuing a career as a personal trainer in the health and fitness industry. If you had told me that would be the case 365 days ago I would have told you to piss off.
For me, goal setting was really important throughout the process of figuring everything out, as it’s a strategy I’ve used to enhance my motivation and commitment especially when things have felt challenging and I’ve felt like giving up. A goal no matter whether it is big or small can be broken down using goal setting as this can be a beneficial tool when working towards making behavioural changes.
As an example, you decide one of your goals is to wake up at 5 am every morning so you can get in an early workout. You are currently waking up at 7 am, chances are it’s unlikely that you will be able to maintain waking up 2 hours earlier every day by making the change instantly without it disrupting your sleep cycle. You could set yourself the goal of waking up 15 minutes earlier every week until you reach your desired overall goal.
Here are a couple of things for you to consider when goal setting:
You will need to be persistent to continue a task over time and keep your objectives in mind.
Your attention will need to be directed to the important aspects of what it is you are trying to achieve.
Clear objectives help to mobilise and direct the intensity of the amount of effort towards a specific task or outcome.
Strategies can help to develop new approaches for achieving your desired outcomes.
It is important to set short, medium and long-term goals because the fulfilment of short-term goals ultimately contributes to the achievement of longer-term goals.
The key thing I learned from my experience was that I was potentially struggling to reach my goals as I wasn’t working towards the right ones and was trying to do so for the wrong reasons.
If you are struggling with that daunting feeling of not really knowing where to start, take a step back and reflect on what your long-term goals are. When you are ready set goals for the week ahead and come up with 3 things you can start progressing with that are in line with your long-term goals, write them down and then go and do them.
I would love to hear what some of your goals are so please do share below in the comments.
Lou x
For further reading -https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5b0b8f55365f02045e1ecaa5/t/5b14d215758d46f9851858d1/1528091160453/Lunenburg%2C+Fred+C.+Goal-Setting+Theoryof+Motivation+IJMBA+V15+N1+2011.pdf