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!
