Do your goals stay unachieved in a drawer?

Goal setting doesn’t work for me. 

This is something I uttered for years. I didn’t get it, I wrote down SMART goals, I bought every cute journal out there and sometimes I even wrote in them but every year they would stay in the drawer and I would find them months later no closer to the goal then when I had written them.

 Sound familiar?

Some people thrive from writing down goals and referring to them and for those people there is plenty of advice out there. I am calling out to the people that simply writing something down gives you no sense of connection or motivation. 

For those people I have a different approach to make those goals come alive: 

• Firstly, are your goals actually things you want achieve or are they things you feel you ought to achieve. Every goal should start with the feeling that you  WANT to achieve it – not I must, I need to or the dreaded I should. You will not be connected unless you want to do it and if you don’t want to do it bin it!
• Now spend a few minutes pretending you have achieved the goal…
  • What has changed? How do you feel? What can you now do that you couldn’t do before?
  • Now ask the future you what they did to get where they are and how they overcame any hurdles – what advice does the future you give the current you? 

• Think of someone you admire and they’ve asked you why you haven’t achieved your goals – describe your emotion, what would you say to them?  Would you like to feel this way?
• Imagine someone else you know has achieved everything you wanted to do – what is your response? how do you feel knowing someone you know is living your dream life?  
• Only now is it time to write the goals down in a way that means something to you – don’t become all formal and wordy (why do we do that when we set goals) chime into the emotions and answers from the above steps – when I say write I mean get it on paper – draw, collage, words, gangsta rap whatever works for you.
• Now next to each goal put down who else benefits when you achieve the goal. What difference will it make to them? My children will get a more energetic and enthusiastic playtime or my customers will have access to a better service which will make their companies more productive.
• Put it somewhere you can see it every day. Mines around my mirror so I see it every time I am getting ready, but the fridge is an equally good place. 

This may help you to connect with your goals on a deeper level so you are more inclined to achieve them. Spend a good deal of time on point 1 because if those goals are not the right ones for you the rest of the steps are a waste of your precious time. 

2020 is a new year but also a new decade so make it the time when your life turns into your dream. 

Happy goal setting!