Here we are in another new year, and as tradition has it, resolutions follow us into our fresh start. Like many, I have set plenty of resolutions that I met but more often than not gave up on a few weeks in. Why is meeting a goal so hard? It really isn’t if we follow four simple steps: set an obtainable goal (focus on small wins), make it visible, schedule the commitment, and accept failure.
I’m going to get real here. I am super productive and successful in almost anything I do because I follow these four steps. My household, work life, and small business all run smoothly because I stay true to these steps. The one area I didn’t list is my personal goal of losing weight. This has been a battle for me since elementary. I know I’m not obese, but I also know I’m where I am because I make poor choices. I’ve been thinner and healthier plenty of times before, so I know I can do it; I’m just really good at making up excuses because I love food, it’s easier to grab chips than make a salad, and wine is a favorite beverage of mine packed full of empty calories.
But what kind of hypocrite would I be if I am running a business that helps people be more productive, yet I’m not following my own advice? I’ve only been accountable to myself, and sometimes that’s not good enough, so here I am making a public goal following my own tips and strategies in the area of my life in which I struggle most.
Why am I doing this? Because I know so many other people struggle with obtaining their goals. It can be exhausting and embarrassing, but why should it be? At work, I tell my staff that failure teaches us what went wrong, so we make changes and try again. At home, I teach my kids that when bad things happen, we learn from them and use those hard times to become stronger. For my business, it is morphing into something I never saw coming because my vision didn’t always align with my customers’ requests. I tweak my business plan constantly in order to make it bigger and better.
So let’s talk about how I’m going to make this happen, and hopefully you’ll join me on this adventure that is personal to you.
1. Set an Obtainable Goal
First thing’s first. You need to set your goal that is obtainable. I want to lose 30 pounds, but I know that is going to take a long time, and I want that to be my result, but that can’t be my process. The journey gets you to the destination. You can’t just skip the traveling. So my goal is to follow my Weight Watchers (WW) points each day by meal planning and prepping and working out 4/7 days of the week. When I accomplish this from week to week, I will celebrate my small wins, which will eventually get me to my final goal.
2. Make Your Goal Visible
Making a goal visible can look differently for everyone. For me, my visibility is on my WW app, where I can physically watch my points each day and track activity. I also track my weight on the app, and that shows me a graph of my trends. Seeing your results, both good and bad, helps motivate you to continue or make changes to do better.
If your goal is budget planning, you’ll need an actual guide to track your spending. If your goal is to eat more fruits and vegetables, make these foods visible by putting them on your counter in a pretty basket or on the shelf at eye level in your fridge. If your goal is to save up money to travel to a country, print a beautiful picture of that dream destination and place it where your debit card is in your wallet to remind you not to spend frivolously. Visible reminders help us see our goal instead of just dreaming it. They make the goal real instead of an abstract thought that will never happen.
3. Schedule Your Commitment
This new year is bringing exciting news to our family: my husband is going back to working daylight after years of working 2nd shift. Although this means amazing things for us after work and school, it also causes a new set of problems that we didn’t have with his previous shift. We now have to take our kids to a center in the morning for them to catch the bus to school. This means I have to leave my house a half hour earlier than before. I used to get up and walk with my mom during the week at 4:45 AM because that was the only kid-free time I had. My mom has been a trooper keeping me accountable and showing up each day for me. But now that TG will be home in the evenings to help with running kids around, I can schedule workout times at night. I do admit that morning workouts are preferable for me because they start the day right, and I’m not exhausted from the day, but I will never get out of the house on time unless I start my morning workouts at 4 AM. That’s just not going to happen, so I recognize the need to change my schedule and will now workout in the evenings. I set my goal for exercising four out of seven days a week because I skip weekends, and this gives me a cushion to be more successful. I know I will never realistically work out seven days a week, so I don’t want to set myself up for failure. (See step 1 for small wins!)
Along with adjusting my schedule, I will continue meal planning so I can guarantee I follow my WW point allotment for the week. By scheduling each meal, there’s no guessing what I’ll be eating throughout the week. Because I’ll know what I’m having for breakfast and lunch, I’ll pack my lunchbox the night before and enter the points while I’m at home in my app. I like to do this because once I get to work, things can get super busy and I don’t stop to track what I’m eating. If it’s already in from the night before, there’s nothing to think about except grabbing my lunchbox in the morning.
4. Accept Failures
This is probably the most important step in obtaining a goal because this is where most people give up. Somewhere along the line we told ourselves as humans that failure isn’t an option. This is idiotic. If failure wasn’t an option, we’d still be Neanderthals writing hieroglyphics on cave walls. We are not one of the most advanced societies by succeeding in everything we do; we’ve gotten to where we are through many, many trials and errors. The key is recognizing these failures, fixing them, and moving forward.
I know all too well what it’s like to step on a scale and see the number go the wrong direction. Then out of frustration I say it’s hopeless and just throw away all of my progress and accept defeat. This is where the weaknesses show. This is where the dig deep down and deal with it mentality comes in. So I had a few bad days following my plan. That’s ok…why did it happen and how can I prevent it from happening again? Make the change and keep going. This is hard. This is where the weak and the strong get divided. I’ve been the weak too many times. Again, in all of my other areas of life, I push through the setbacks, but I’ve always let my personal goals get stomped on by my ego. No more of that. Setbacks are ok as long as we don’t make them the norm.
2021 was a crap year for me for a few reasons, but it’s taught me even more the importance of following these 4 steps to reaching a goal. This freebie goal sheet may help with getting started. Feel free to drop a message below of what your resolution will be and what your apprehensions are with reaching it. Baby steps are key. We didn’t all pop out of the womb running marathons; instead we crawled slowly to build confidence, eventually stood up to the unknown, and fell many, many times before running from room to room. We healed from our bruises and used the padding from our diaper to hop right back up and try, try again.
