Coming into a new year “goal setting” is all we hear? Honestly, it either inspires you to chat about your goals OR to give a big eye-roll. Lets not eye-roll though because improvement is rad and we should always be looking to better ourselves!
Personally, I think it is awesome to reevaluate and revamp each and every week. It is human nature to feel good after accomplishing something, so why not make goals each year, month, week, and even day?
Here are a few tips that I have found helpful in setting, sticking to, and slaying my goals!
How to set goals?
I am not trying to say that I am the all knowing goal wizard; good hell, I wish! I am working all the time to do better and, in the spirit of honesty, “new year’s resolutions” always seemed like a sham to me.
I finally realized though, that I was using that mindset as an excuse to not make goals and therefore, remain stagnant! I finally started actually making changes I wanted to see when I got “smart” about my goal setting (I love a good acronym):
S: specific and clear.
How often do we say “I want to lose weight”, “I want to read more”, “I want to grow my business”? These are all worthy and awesome desires, but they are SO vague!!! How do you even know what that means? It’s a pretty broad statement of what you want. Get specific about what your goals are!
M: measurable.
Continuing with the above examples, lets make our goals something we can actually measure and check in on. “I want to lose 15 lbs”, “I want to read 12 books”, “I want to double my clientele”. When we make our goals measurable we make it possible to check in on how we are doing.
A: achievable.
Being realistic is very important! If you are in pretty good shape and said “I want to lost 50lbs this year” you would just be setting yourself up to fail. It is so easy to get down on yourself and then we get caught in the “why even try” mindset. Goals are only productive if the achievable and realistic.
R: relevant and recorded.
Make sure the goals you set are actually relevant in your life and that you record them. This means you need to write down where you are starting from and then take not of your progress and what you are doing. You can’t accurately determine if you have doubled your clientele if you have zero documentation of the clientele you are starting with.
T: time-bound.
Setting a timeframe for your goals is a huge factor in strong goal setting, and is often forgotten. Without that timeframe your goals could just be set with a completion deadline of “eh, whenever I get around to it”.
Here is what the goals I initially listed would look like if they were fine tuned and “SMART”:
“I will lose 15 lbs this year. 10 lbs by May and another 5 by December”
“I will read 12 new books this year, one a month.”
“I will go from 20 clients to 40 clients by the end of the holiday season this year.”
Another tip that isn’t listed in the “SMART” goals outline is to write your goals out and affirmative statements. As you can see above, I wrote all of the goals as beginning with “I will…”. That is a really good way to write and think about your goals as a reality rather than just seeing them as a goal.
How to stick with goals?
Burnout is REAL! Can I please get an “amen”to that?! For real, it is so hard to stick with a goal when its one that falls into the “long term” category. I personally have found that the best way to stick with a goal is to break it down and game plan.
Break down the anatomy of your goal. So, for instance, the “I will lose 15 lbs this year. 10 lbs by May and another 5 by December” goal I stated above. I would ask myself “what is getting in my way for this?”
For me the answer would be
1. Eating junk food
2. Not drinking enough water
3. Not enough exercise.
Once I know where the struggles are, I can game plan. Personally, I feel like a detailed plan can solve a lot of problems. I like to take that breakdown and make a plan for each problem. I think it is key to make this plan something that is very clear and easy to follow. So what I would do is look at each problem and write out easy to measure solutions, like so:
Only eat out 3 times a week
Drink one glass of water each morning
Drink 85oz of water each day
Plan out my workout schedule every Sunday and write on calendar asas scheduled meeting
Workout a minimum of 4 days a week for at least one hour
Having a set plan gives me mini goals that I can have set for each day. This is great because it makes it easy to track my goals, but even more importantly, it gives me tasks that I can accomplish each day. Feeling the boost from succeeding at a mini goal keeps the long term goals from getting daunting!
How to SLAAAAY goals?
Slaying your goals comes from following the above and from being in a good headspace! Confidence is key.
You need to believe in yourself and your goals. Also, don’t be afraid to share your goals. Spoken goals hold more weight because it gives an added layer of accountability. We also need to share our successes! Let people know that you are slaying, own your personal wins and let people celebrate them with you.
As we get started on yet another year, just remember to take time to reflect on the life you are living. Is it the life of your dreams? If not, change it! Look at where your life is and where you want it to be and make a step, any step at all, in the direction you need to be heading. The time to start in today.It doesn’t matter what day it is while you are reading this, today is the very best day to make those necessary changes!
xx,
Your Hair Love Tribe
P.S. We are routing for you and all your goals and dreams!
