Achieving your Goals

The new year has recently passed. Perhaps you have made some well-intended new year’s resolutions, I mean why not?! Creating new year’s resolutions is a wonderful thing. It indicates a desire to create positive change in one’s life. The prospect of a new year brings to life new hopes, dreams and good intentions. However, many fail to achieve their goals because they don’t plan well for it. Add in the reality of daily life, time constraints, and the lack of a comprehensive and detailed plan to achieve our goals, and this may leave you feeling like a failure. This can add new stress to our already stressful lives, and compound negative feelings about ourselves that may already exist.

Planning is important, and how you plan is equally important. Most of us make a resolution by saying “I will do _____” and expect that our good intentions will manifest into action. Thus, there is no follow through as to how our goal will be achieved. When we have no plan, we are more likely to fall through on goals. Good intentions are not always enough.

If you read the last newsletter, I briefly mentioned that in December, I create my budget of wants and needs for the upcoming year. I have been successful at achieving my financial goals because of the detailed planning and thought that I put into it. However, some goals are easier to achieve than others. And using the right tools to achieve our goals is equally important.

Here is an example of an easy goal. If I wanted to purchase a set of new tires next year, I would find the tires that I wanted and add tax to the cost of the tires as well as 10% (to cover any increases throughout the year) and then divide that amount by months. If I want to purchase tires in November then I would divide the amount by 10 (10 months). Thus, I would know how much I need to carve out of my budget to achieve this goal. Easy!

However, some goals are not as simple as you will see in this goals worksheet. Some goals require detailed thought and planning and may impact other aspects of your life on deeper levels. Weight loss is one such goal that requires more planning to be achievable. It is one of the most common new year resolutions and one that requires more planning to achieve and one that most people give up on.

When creating some of your goals, I recommend using SMART goals in conjunction with a vision board. Don’t worry, I have outlined them in greater detail in the worksheet, but here are the basics. SMART stands for: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Timely.

A vision board is a board that you can create, outlining different aspects of your life for 5 to 10 years that outlines what you want to achieve.

I hope you enjoyed this article and I wish you success on your goals (if you have created some)! You’ve got this!!!

Plan and achieve your goals using this worksheet