How to Set & Reach Achievable Goals

Happy New Year! 

I always love the feeling of the first few days of January because it seems like a fresh start. No matter what last year held, good or bad, this is a new year to do with what you want. 

With the excitement can come pressure, though. It is a brand new year, so if we’ve been waiting to make changes, now is the time! We want to get on them quickly before they become last year’s news. 

We talk a lot about New Year’s “Resolutions” - you know the ones: those often unrealistic goals we set for ourselves, like going to the gym 5 days a week and drinking nothing but water so we can get down to our goal weight by bikini season. 

No matter what last year held, good or bad, this is a new year to do with what you want. 

I have set these types of resolutions, and began with fervor and good intentions, only to be sadly disappointed and rife with burnout by the middle of February. Eventually the burnout takes over, and I once again succumb to old habits. 

It feels awful. Like it’s only the second month of the year and already I’ve failed myself. 

Has this happened to you before? 

There are a few problems with “Resolutions”: 

We only set them once per year In the spirit of beginning a whole new year, we set these resolutions for ourselves; but, after the newness has worn off, the reality is that time still passes the same way. There are still 12 months, 28-31 days per month, etc. Once we get back into a familiar pattern, we don’t seem to revisit our resolutions, though. It’s like the shirt you needed at the store... that you’ve never worn and is now forgotten at the back of the closet.

We tend to go too hard too fast Because we’re excited, we jump right into our resolutions! Weight loss and health goals are very popular, as is reading more. In the first few weeks of the year, maybe even the entire month of January, we diligently pursue our resolutions. Maybe we see progress, maybe not. Since we were so ready, we set a pace we can’t maintain for the rest of the year. We sometimes forget we will eventually need to slow down, or at least rest once in awhile. 

We think of road bumps as failures Probably one of the biggest problems is that when we jumped in and worked our butts off on on our resolutions for weeks, we didn’t see as many results as we thought or wanted. We might think since we didn’t lose 5 pounds after extreme dieting and exercise that our New Year’s resolution to get “bikini ready” will never succeed - might as well give up. But it takes awhile to build new habits and see results, whether the resolution is physical or not. We shouldn’t give up, but we probably do need to take a day of rest and recuperation. 

So How Do I Make Progress if I Don’t Do New Years’ Resolutions?

If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering what the heck to do with this information. Perhaps you never thought of forgotten New Years’ resolutions as a problem. Perhaps, in your experience, they haven’t been. 

The main issue I have with resolutions is the word itself, and the idea that they are set in stone without flexibility.

The main issue I have with resolutions is the word itself, and the idea that they are set in stone without flexibility. I might think I know what the year will hold, but then June hits and something completely off the wall happens that I never could have expected. Resolution, by the nature of the definition, seems too stern to me, and doesn’t allow room to change when that crazy event happens. 

So, rather than setting resolutions, I set yearly goals. Because I get a renewed energy in January, it’s the perfect time to plan how to best get to my dreams. And I have big dreams! So I need big goals. 

Goals don’t have those connotations, though. Goals imply I am making an effort to achieve a purpose. If that event happens and I need to shift my resources or adjust the end plan, goals allow for that growth. If I am adjusting my goals, it also means that I am monitoring and working toward them rather than letting them sit in the back of my mind with no thought or progress.

I’ve been setting annual goals for several years now, and I find it a very effective tool. They started small-ish and very specific: things like “Lose 10 pounds by my birthday” (My birthday is in mid-April). I found these types of goals to be limiting, though, because what would I do after the 10 pounds? Probably set another goal - but then should I have just set a bigger goal to begin with? 

I also found myself focusing too much on numbers and achievements (one of my strengths is Achiever, so this makes a lot of sense for me) rather than growth. This mindset came mostly from my time in school where “x” number of achievements makes up a diploma with a good GPA. Achievement or statistic based goals leave out the concept of well-rounded growth, though. You can’t measure being a better wife or dog-mom with numbers and statistics, you know? 

We are not our grades, just like we are not our job titles or pay grades.

So I started thinking more big picture. I teach the growth mindset in my classes, and I wish I had implemented it in my life sooner. The basic idea is that with effort and hard work, we can grow our skills, even if we don’t have “natural talent” for something. We are not our grades, just like we are not our job titles or pay grades. This concept makes it possible to work on goals like being a more supportive friend because we can then think about listening and empathy skills. 

I set my goals to encompass the important aspects of my life. Not just health and wellness, but my interests, dreams, and relationships, too. I want them to be diverse and inclusive because that will make more of a long-term impact than losing 10 pounds by my birthday. 

You should try annual goals! They are a great way to make progress.

What Do Good Goals Look Like? 

When you do set annual goals, there are a couple of details to consider. They are open to however you want and/or need to grow, but being vague or setting goals that you don’t really know what they mean aren’t going to help you much because you’re not going to remember what you were thinking. On top of that, how will you measure if you are making progress on that vague idea? 

Start: Be a better person. 

For example: Be a better person. 

That’s an admirable goal! But it needs some work to be good and achievable. 

Focused Good goals have a focus that you can actively take steps toward. In the example above, how would I know if I’m becoming a better person if that’s the only thing I wrote down? I wouldn’t, because it’s not focused. 

Before I start working on this goal, I need to figure out what “better” means. Do I need to work on listening? Do I need to work on being more empathetic? Once I’ve figured that out, I can focus more on what I can do to be better.

Focus: I want to listen more to be a better friend.

Something like: I want to listen more to be a better friend.

Achievable Once my idea is focused, I need to make sure I can actually do something concrete and take action towards it. Listening is something I can practice, but how do I do that? How do I start taking those steps? Adding more specificity to our goals helps us make them more achievable. 

Make Achievable: I want to practice active listening with my friends more so that I can better support them and be a good friend. 

One way to make this example more achievable might be: I want to practice active listening with my friends more so that I can better support them and be a good friend. 

Have Set Parameters When we have focused and achievable goals, we are almost ready to start working on them! After all, we know we can achieve them with some hard work and determination, right? The last step to setting a good goal is to make sure you have a way to measure it. How will you know if you’re making progress if you don’t know what progress actually is? You won’t. So build that in to your goal. 

Set Parameters: I want to practice active listening with my friends more so that I can better support them and be a good friend. To do this, I will be accountable to them by asking how I am doing once per month and practicing the same skills with my family.

My goal is: I want to practice active listening with my friends more so that I can better support them and be a good friend. To do this, I will be accountable to them by asking how I am doing once per month and practicing the same skills with my family.

The parameters here are to involve the friends, which means that there will be accountability and dialog (hopefully) about progress, and to practice with family, too. Practicing more and getting additional feedback will create more opportunities to improve.

Challenges You A big part of setting goals is to make sure to challenge yourself. This is not to say make the goals impossible, because that will be disheartening! But if you know you will meet all of your goals by the middle of March, you might consider setting your sights a little higher or wider so that you can see longer-term progress over the course of the year. 

If this all sounds daunting, don’t feel anxious - it is! Especially if we feel like our goals are high-stakes. In our example, the goal was to be a better friend by actively listening to others. If we don’t work on that, it could cost us friends. 

No matter what your goals are, it’s important to remember that we are all works in progress. Goals help up take steps toward being better versions of ourselves, but there’s not a “perfect” end goal for being a human. 

How Do We Achieve Our Goals?

Hooray, we have goals! Isn’t it an exciting feeling to think how much improvement we will see in ourselves once we have worked toward them? I love a good goals-setting session. However, we aren’t quite done yet. After all, we haven’t achieved those goals, have we? We need to take action to be able to get there.

Planning Before we jump headlong into these new goals, we need to take a little time and plan how we are going to achieve them. 

Personally, I like to look at the year as a whole first because I am a visual person. When I can see all of the months on the page at one time, I can more easily envision steps for each month. I can also plan less on the months with a lot of holidays or vacation time, if that will affect my progress.

The important thing is that we are making progress, no matter how small it feels.

Once I have planned the month, I use a weekly planner and set 2-3 priorities for each week. Since I do multiple goals for different aspects of my life, I need to be able to balance them. Priorities aren’t always date specific, but I always write them down. For instance, I prioritize writing one section of my book each week. It doesn’t matter which day, or which section (although that will be more specific when my first draft is done), but I always prioritize writing something. 

Some people do really well planning each day of the week. When I tried that, it felt overwhelming; however, if seeing all of your time blocked out helps you stay on track, by all means, go for it!

Small Steps When we have a whole year plan, it’s easier to see what steps we can take each week and day. The important thing is that we are making progress, no matter how small it feels. We want to be moving forward in some way every week.  

Sometimes my small step for the day is to organize (or reorganize) because I have loose papers hanging out of my planner or because I wrote 5,000 words of content without any subheads. Sometimes my small step is preparing to put a lot of content on my blog at one time, which requires a lot of back-end work that’s much less exciting than the writing. 

Your small steps should help you prepare to achieve your goals in whatever way possible, but should not get in the way of progress.

Your small steps should help you prepare to achieve your goals in whatever way possible, but should not get in the way of progress. For instance, I couldn’t make progress on my blog if the only thing I did was back-end work. Or on my writing if I only put in a bunch of subheads without any content underneath. We need to try to balance our steps so that we can actually see progress from our hard work. 

Perseverance Sometimes it feels like we will never reach our goals. On days where we didn’t sleep enough, were over-committed at work and just need downtime in the evening instead of more “work” on ourselves, or even just that we’ve been feeling a little off the entire day, it’s hard to say: I’m going to take this step today. 

Be kind to yourself on these days.

But don’t let these kind of days become a regular occurrence.

The reality is that if you’re working hard and you’re actively taking steps to make your goals happen, you will get there. But you have to keep trying, and you have to believe in yourself. Keep yourself in a positive, can do attitude, and you will be an unstoppable dream-getter. Who doesn’t want that?!

What has your experience been with goal-setting? How have goals helped you move toward your dreams? Have you ever missed your goal? How did you stay motivated? I’d love to hear about it! Drop a comment below or email me at rachel@capturingyourconfidence.com!