Imagine what would happen if you got in your car to go somewhere, let’s say work, but you didn’t know exactly where it was or even what it was. You wouldn’t get very far without getting a few more specific details. This is what living a life without goals is like. If you go about your day, week, month or year without a clear idea of where you are headed, you might as well be on a bus with no particular destination in mind. You’ve given up control of where you end up.

Personally, I’ve always been a goal-oriented person. I’m not necessarily a person who has the next five years of my life mapped out, however, I have a good general idea of where I’m going. For me, goals are a great way to keep yourself in check – kind of like a road map. I use them to figure out where I want to go and the best route to get there, but if something interesting pops up, a little detour isn’t going to hurt anyone, as long as there is a clear way back to the original route.

With the excessive amount of distractions to “entertain” us, goal setting is even more important than ever. For most people, there’s no real purpose in their day-to-day life. They get up, go to work, come home, spend time with family, go to bed and do it all over again. There’s not much creativity or inspiration with the daily grind.

Goal setting is a way to move past this. You can use it to help you professionally or personally. The best part? The method is incredibly simple.

First, pick your main overall goals. They could be anything from starting your own business to developing a new hobby. Maybe you want to lose weight or quit a bad habit. Whatever your goal is, be clear about it.

Next, do something EVERY day (or nearly every day) to take you closer to that goal. If your goal is to lose weight, do something each day to get you there. Take a walk, drink more water, or eat more vegetables. It doesn’t have to be a huge lifestyle change. Just do one thing each day.

I’ve found this approach is incredibly helpful with the goals you think may be unattainable or just a little out of reach. If you’re able to do just one thing each day that will get you towards your goal, you’re one step closer. After six months or even a year, you’re considerably closer to your target then you were when you fell victim to becoming overwhelmed.

So how do you put this into a practical application? Here’s what I do…

I start each day with one or two specific goals for the day in mind. For instance, get everything on my work to-do list done and have time to go to the movies with the family. As distractions enter my day, it’s easy to avoid them or quickly handle them and get back to the bigger picture of what I’m trying to achieve that day. This works for both professional and personal issues. On days off, my goal may be to finish laundry and find a new restaurant to try. If I do those things, I know my day has been a success.

On a broader perspective, I also do this for my week and month. On a Sunday evening or Monday morning, I look at everything I want to accomplish that week. It could be to finish a certain number of projects, write a post every day for the blog or try three new recipes that week. I try to keep things fairly general, because this type of goal setting should be fluid and work intuitively with you. The more specific you are, the more it becomes like another to-do list – not very inspiring to finish.

Each year, I also create a very loose set of things I’d like to achieve. This year, I want to get my house more in order and work on improving existing areas of my work. Last year was about setting things up, this year’s focus is on improving those things.

This method works extremely well for me. I’m able to handle multiple projects at once, homeschool my daughter, run my household, manage a retail store and still have personal time. My hope is that it helps inspire you to also get moving towards those bigger dreams you’ve been unable to confront. Just remember to take it one day at a time!

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Much of my time is spent on the phone or answering emails about whether something is a good idea for a particular client at that particular time. Most often it’s not, and it’s my job to get the client refocused on their original goals they stated in the beginning of our relationship. I frequently stop to think about this pattern and contemplate whether there’s a better way to keep people focused and on track.

This thinking has led me to develop a guide or a master plan that helps keep me and my clients focused a little more clearly. Today, I thought I’d share it in the hopes that you can benefit from it as well. This master plan is created as a series of criteria your idea must meet in order to make it to the next checkpoint. If it doesn’t make it all the way to the last checkpoint, more than likely it’s not the right course of action for you at this time. At the end of this checklist, you’ll find suggestions for dealing with those ideas that don’t cut it right now.

First Check: Is it in line with your ultimate goal?
My master plan always starts with a mission statement that clearly defines what I want and don’t want to provide as a service or benefit. It’s basically my number one ultimate goal. I try to make it as simple and to the point as possible. Most mission statements are filled with so much fluff that they don’t communicate a single purpose. Any time I’m in doubt about what to do or what direction to take, I always weigh my options and possible outcomes against my mission statement. If it doesn’t further this goal, then I know it isn’t the right direction to take at the moment.

Second Check: Do you have the resources in place to incorporate the idea?
Most ideas have great merit, however, that doesn’t mean it’s something that will help you at that specific point in time. I liken ideas to A-list actors getting bombarded with movie scripts. Every idea has some potential, but is it REALLY what you want to work on or what’s right for you at this point in time? The way to evaluate this is to keep a list of the tools available to you, and update it fairly often. I try to do this every 6 weeks or so. Tools are any resources that are helping you accomplish your goals. This could be anything from actual people to the amount and level of technology available to you.

Third Check: Do you really have the time?
Most people overestimate how much time they have available, or they underestimate the actual length of time an action will take. To make an accurate determination regarding your time management, you need to make sure you have a clear picture of what’s going on. This is what works for me:

When I first make a plan for someone or start a new project, I create a list of every single thing that will take up my time, from answering emails and phone calls to actual work and travel time. When my list is complete, I begin giving each task a time value based on how long I believe it will take to complete. In most cases, I cushion it a bit in my favor to allow for unexpected delays. At the beginning of a week, I determine how many hours I will be working. Knowing how much time each action will take simplifies this process. If I only have six hours available on the particular day, I know I can only do tasks that will take up six hours of my time. Now it just becomes a juggling process to determine when is the most opportune time to complete each task.

This method of time management allows me to determine quite clearly if I have the time to actually take on a new idea or project. Even if the idea fits my mission statement and I have the tools to implement the strategy, if I don’t have the time, it just doesn’t make sense to try the idea at this point.

Last Check: Would this idea outperform a current idea or strategy in place?
If you’ve weighed all the options and realized this is a great idea, but time or resources are currently unavailable, you may need to consider whether or not this course of action would be of greater benefit than a current idea you are implementing. I don’t really have an exact science for determining this, but a lot of it deals with a gut feeling and how easy things seem to flow into action. If I find it a struggle to try and get something moving, its typically a good indicator I’m going down the wrong path. However, if everything seems to just “happen” the way it should, I can be fairly certain I’m on the right track for that moment in time.

Final Thoughts
I use the phrase “current moment in time” quite often when it comes to ideas. I feel most ideas have a valid opportunity for success, just sometimes it’s not the right timing. If an idea didn’t meet any of my current criteria, and I still feel fairly strong about its potential, I’ll shelf the idea for review in a few months. About every two months, I go over my list of saved ideas and see if anything would currently make it through my criteria.

This is what I do. What are your methods?

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As you can imagine, being in the same industry for over ten years can at times yield a significant amount of creative burnout. For bloggers who are expected to write frequently, this can also be a common problem. However, the flip side to not writing often is losing readers or potential customers. When things get stagnant, people lose interest. You don’t need to be innovative or unique, you just need to be excited about what you’re creating and be able to communicate that through your chosen forum. With that in mind, I thought that today I’d share some of my tips for pushing past creative blocks.

Tip #1 – Be prepared…

I love to be organized, but hate feeling “committed” to doing something. After talking with others, I’ve found that to be true for many other creative types as well. Unfortunately, this habit works against us as we don’t always take the time to plan ahead. A few years ago, I forced myself to really buckle down and commit to some admin tasks when it came to editorial issues. The result: I was able to triple the amount of content I produced in the same amount of time. Now, the first steps I take always involving planning.

Editorial Plans Are Awesome!
I swear by editorial calendars. It doesn’t mean I always use it, but for the times when ideas aren’t streaming out of my head, it’s a great fall back. The best thing about creating content calendars is that you can generate internal excitement for upcoming projects. This is great asset if you’re working with a team and can be treated almost like a product launch, especially for bigger projects or tasks. I know we’re talking mostly about content here, but I’d like to throw out a little reminder – product and marketing calendars are also just as useful.

Always have a way to record your ideas handy.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had amazing content ideas and had no way of recording my ideas. I was fairly certain in my recall ability and didn’t worry about it too much. Wrong idea! Now, I always make sure I have something or someone where I can store my ideas. I use an iPhone so the voice memo and notes apps are excellent for me when I’m on the go. Evernote stores everything else.

Tip #2 – Search for topic ideas constantly…

Creative blocks usually occur when you can’t find something to write about. The best way to handle this is to spend some time each day reading and talking about things in your field.

Forums and blogs are secret idea generators!
The best ideas come when you’re immersed in the culture of your industry. You can glean topic ideas from people’s posts, their responses, and what topics other bloggers are covering. A lot of times, I see a blog post or article and think of new ways to expand on the topic. Ta Da! A new blog idea just came into being. Even more often, looking over the comments to an article will start a creative spark.

Visit the library or bookstore.
There’s typically a vast amount of resources on any given topic in book form. Browse through a couple in your field and see if you discover any blog or article topics. Just because a topic has been covered somewhere by someone else doesn’t mean your own insights and perspectives into it aren’t just as valuable. If that were the case, there’d only be one book in every genre.

Answer questions.
Browse through some of the comments or emails you’ve received and see if any common questions are popping up. In the past, I’d take one day a week and write down every question that came in. I’d take the ones that were relevant and create one Q&A style article that answered everyone. If you don’t have enough e-mails to cull through, try viewing sites like Yahoo! Answers for ideas.

Tip #3 – Think like your reader…

When you write on the same topic every day, it’s easy to feel like you’re becoming boring and repetitive, or that you’ve exhausted every topic. In most cases, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Your perspective is always going to be different, and it may be just the thing that someone else needed to hear. Don’t fall into the trap of invalidating yourself or your ideas.

Tip #4 – Rejuvenate Yourself…

Unfortunately, burnout does occur, and even through your best attempts, it can be just plain unavoidable. Your work, especially as an entrepreneur, is a significant part of your life. If something isn’t going right or you become unhappy, you need to find new ways to reinvent or rejuvenate yourself.

Take 24 hours off…
Sometimes the best way to get back into the swing of things is to make a complete disconnect with your work life. That means no phone calls, no emails, no blog reading. Take a day to go do something fun and relaxing and put the work cycle on hold for awhile. The best way to approach this is to pick your day and make sure you let co-workers or team members know of your plans ahead of time. That way they won’t freak out that you’re not responding or try to contact you.

Plan social breaks throughout the week…
Those work lunches do more than just help you network. Being around other like-minded individuals can help motivate and inspire you to action. Plan to meet at least one to two people each week that really motivate you. Even if all you can both manage is a phone call, it really pays to have someone to bounce ideas off of and help keep you focused and motivated.

These are a few of my ideas. What do you do to stay motivated?

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