What do you want for yourself? Where do you see yourself next month? Where do you see yourself next year? Can you answer these questions? If not, you lack goals.
Goals are a very powerful tool for working towards the things you want in life, whether that be riches, to lose weight or to be the big boss. All these things require you to set some goals. Goals help create clarity and almost a map of how you will reach them; who doesn’t want the instructions to their goals? Lol I know I do and creating SMART Goals is a great way to do that.
There are 3 types of goals: short term goals, long term goals and lifetime goals. For you to be successful in your journey to your dreams you must utilise goal setting at all levels to give you a well calculated blueprint.
I am a firm believer in setting your goals big. As big as possible. Your goals should be your dreams. However, if your dream is to be the most famous videographer that’s great but the question is what are you going to do to get there? What are the steps that you are going to take every day, every week, every month to get there? This is where SMART goals come in.
A SMART goal is something that is:
• Specific (simple, sensible, significant)
• Measurable (meaningful, motivating)
• Achievable (agreed, attainable)
• Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based)
• Time bound (time-based, time limited, time/cost limited, timely, time-sensitive)
Creating smart goals makes your aims clearer and more reachable. In addition, what makes SMART goals great is that they can be used in all areas in your life, cooking, fitness, finances, etc..
So, I guess the question is, what makes goal setting so powerful? Well the first thing is it makes people act. It gives you somewhere to start and something to work towards. It’s important to break down your big goals into smaller ones because these smaller goals are the stepping stones to the finish line. Breaking down your goals into smaller goals makes them feel more achievable, therefore, making you motivated and giving you that can-do attitude. So many people have all these great ideas that they would love to bring into existence but so many of us don’t have that courage to take action so start small set a goal and take that leap of faith.
Unfortunately though, sometimes things don’t go to plan, goals may not be met which makes us feel some type of way. But in these situations, that’s where the real magic happens. When things don’t go to plan you are still a step closer to your goals BUT what’s important is you need to know why you’ve failed and then NEVER EVER MAKE THAT MISTAKE AGAIN! So, when J Hus asks you on the TL ‘are you stronger than yesterday?’ – you can say yes! Yesterday you made a mistake, you learned from it and you have now made the adjustments to never do that again- easy enough right?
These are the most common reasons why people don’t reach their goals:
1. Not following the SMART goal acronym
2. Lack of understanding of the goal
3. Setting TOO many goals (being ambitious is great but it needs it needs to make sense)
4. Lack of commitment to the goal
5. Failing to plan (FAIL TO PREPARE= PREPARE TO FAIL)
But the biggest reason why people don’t reach their goals is because they don’t take action. Remember if you do not act you have already failed
Now let’s talk about failure, rejection, losing. All these things are perceived as something negative but what many people don’t understand is that it is down to how you perceive failure. Every time you fail you learn a lesson. Every time you fail you gain knowledge. Say it with me FAILURE IS NOT BAD, FAILURE IS GOOD. (As long as you learn from your mistakes each time of course). You should be asking yourself every time you mess up – why did I fail? What went wrong and how can I improve next time? It’s these thoughts that will differentiate you from your peers and it’s this mindset that will help you reach your goals and achieve your full potential.
Just to finish of I’d like to leave 10 tips to reaching your goals:
1. Stay Motivated
2. Don’t look at what others are doing
3. Keep track of your progress
4. Don’t be afraid to reach out to others for help
5. If others don’t understand your goals that’s fine, they don’t need to get it only you do.
6. Failure is your friend not your enemy, it’s only your enemy if you let it defeat you.
7. Make sure your goals are SMART
8. Life is a marathon not a race
9. Have a can-do attitude
10. Make it happen
Good luck in your ventures and reach for the sky!
Love always,
The RealTalk Blog
The RealTalk Blog 