Goals!
Now that you've taken stock (see previous post), it's time to set goals.
Why set goals?
Why choose where you are going on vacation? Because you want to go there and experience that place.
If you didn't decide where to go and just started driving, you might come across some cool places and do some neat things. However, you might miss a lot of the best places to see and things to do. Also, most of the world would be out of reach because you're on a road trip.
Unfortunately, a lot of people live life like its a spontaneous road trip. A spontaneous road trip can be fun. My wife and I had an amazing trip to New York City that was largely spontaneous and we had a blast. Looking back, however, we've talked about several ways that our time in NYC could have been used better. Luckily, it was early in our dating life which made everything magical!
The bottom line.
If you want to achieve something in specific or if you aren't satisfied with where you're at, your best way forward is setting some goals.
How to set goals.
Experts and all the research says that the way you write your goals matters. You need to make your goals S.M.A.R.T and S.M.A.R.T.E.R. goals are even better. I whole heartedly agree and we'll post about them later.
However!
For many of us, we're already a little worn out from taking stock and envisioning our future and don't have the brain power or emotional energy to write S.M.A.R.T and S.M.A.R.T.E.R. goals.
Here's a tip for those of us in this camp. Your first goal is this:
Goal #1: Learn how to write good goals AND rewrite all of my goals by January 31, 2023.
Copy and paste right now. This is your first goal. This way, you don't have to stop your progress to learn how to write goals. You can focus your thoughts on the following guidelines.
Take it one step at a time.
One of many problems with New Year's resolutions is that we often expect to be radically different from one day to the next. On January 1st, I'm:
- quitting sugar!
- exercising every day for an hour
- preparing everything myself. No processed food in 2023!
Start with one or two of the most important things you'd like to change in each area of life (personal, social, professional, recreational, etc.).
You'll have a list of 5-10 goals, maybe a couple more. Jumping into all of them at once will leave you frazzled and overwhelmed. A implementation plan will help with that!