Have you ever taken a step back to look at your life and think, what the hell am I doing with my life and how did I get here?
Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
I was there recently. I was thinking of my current age, about my younger years, and the dreams that I had for myself that just never quite came true. It came to the point where I felt a huge amount of anxiety over it. I was under the impression that I was running out of time and I needed to make changes in my life before it was too late. The big problem was I didn’t know which direction to go.
I had so many ideas of how I could reach success. I could be successful at writing, I could be successful at painting, I could do so many things in my life because the opportunities of today are literally endless. I just didn’t know what to do.
“I didn’t know how to narrow down my dreams.”
I made the horrible mistake of trying to achieve multiple things at once. As you can imagine it was a huge fail. But, at the time I could not understand why I was failing so badly. I definitely had that hustle mentality that my generation possesses. I was grinding all day, every day but there was no order, no kind of structure in my daily routine. I didn’t have a journal. I didn’t have a planner.
When I did write in my planner it was very scattered and I was never consistent with it. That’s because I never sat down and really just planned out my week, month, year. (if you missed my latest post, I customized a free weekly planner just for you, click here to view!) I never had one vision for one specific goal. It’s so important to work on one thing at a time. I learned this after many failures. I was putting minimum effort into all these scattered projects instead of putting all my focus into one project. Now I want to highlight one thing here for you.
There is no such thing as unrealistic goals but rather unrealistic time frames.
What I had done in the past; I tried to complete roughly 6 major goals in one year. That is totally unrealistic and way too much pressure. A year. Really think about how short a year is.
Let me tell you, when that year was over I didn’t come close to completing any of these goals, and I felt like such a failure. Such a failure that I gave up for a while. That’s exactly what we don’t want to feel.
Now instead of setting ourselves up for failure, as I did in the past, we are going to discuss strategies that will set us up for success instead!
So for those of you that seem to have a seemingly endless amount of ideas, like me, just write it all down. Physically write all the goals you ever wanted to achieve down on a piece of paper. This will give you clarity, giving you the opportunity to visualize your goals. Out of this list, no matter how large, pick only five goals you wish to achieve.
Okay great, we listed all of our goals. We also managed to select five goals we deemed most important. Now, out of those five, pick which goal you would like to tackle first.
Did you do it?
Ok. great! onto the next step.
The strategy for organized goal setting we will talk about today is S.M.A.R.T goal setting. Its a step by step guide that will assist you with the execution of the chosen goal. I have a free printable SMART sheet just for you down below. To learn more about the meaning of S.M.A.R.T, continue reading.
The S.M.A.R.T algorithm stands for:
Specific Measurable Achievable Realistic Timely
SMART
SPECIFIC
Rule number one: be specific with your goal, which we mentioned before. As you reach your goal ask yourself the five W’s.
- Who– Who is involved in my goal?
- What-What do I want to accomplish?
- Where-Where do I want to achieve this goal?
- When-When do I want to accomplish this goal?
- Why– Why do I want to achieve this goal?
Measurable
Learn how to track and measure your accomplishments. Reaching milestones confirms that you’re on the right track and can boost your confidence way up. Everyone likes the feeling of succeeding, no matter how large or small the step may seem. There is no one way to measure every goal, so it’s up to you to come up with your own milestones.
Achievable
At this point in the planning, you need to be very honest with yourself. You have to think about the resources you have available, your lifestyle, and what is accessible to you during this chapter of your life. If you are finding that something is unassessable, before you move any further, find out how to get the access. Take this time to research.
Realistic
Ask yourself, with the resources you were able to gather from the previous step, is your goal still realistic. If yes, great, move onto the next step! If not, you got some more thinking to do. Remember don’t rush this process. This is the backbone of your dream. Let’s make it come true!
Timely
This is when you sit down and think about your overall timeframe. So let’s say you want to master the piano, what is a realistic timeframe to set for yourself? Is it six months or a year or more? It depends on your lifestyle and schedule, right? You know yourself better than anyone. Remember, we never want to set ourselves up for failure, so make sure you’re being honest with yourself with each step.
That’s it. Those are all five steps of S.M.A.R.T. That wasn’t so bad, was it? Once you sit down and break down the execution it should all be a walk in the park from there.
And now CLICK HERE FOR YOUR FREE SMART SHEET!
You got this! I hope you enjoyed today’s post.
As always: Stay you, Stay True, Stay Beautiful. ♥
See you next week!
Before you leave, check out this Self-Love Children’s BookSelf-Love Children’s Book
Hello, I’m Classy Queeny and this is my website, welcome! As a Self-Love Advocate, I enjoy giving and receiving genuine love from those around me. I recognize that life is full of tests and bumpy roads. But, I wish to walk the path of peace and mutual understanding through growth, awareness, patience, and most importantly love. 🙂 I believe that the beauty in life is perception. My hope is that we can seek life’s beauty together! To learn more about me and ClassyQueenyProductions.com click here!