Did You Forget This?

2024 is nearly half over. If you’re actively crushing your goals, congratulations, you’re in the top 9% of goal achievers on the planet!

But if you’re like most people… chances are when you read that question, it’s probably the first time you’ve thought about your New Year’s goals in a long time.

Remember how motivated and excited you were about the possibilities when you made your New Year’s resolutions?

You were focused and clear about your intentions and the changes you wanted to make.

And chances are you still want to take charge of your life and make those changes, so it’s not a lack of desire.

The Culprit

So what’s the culprit? It’s what gets in the way of most of us when we’re trying to learn anything new or uncomfortable:

RESISTANCE.

Resistance comes in the form of self-doubt, fear, discomfort, worry, procrastination, lack of commitment, comfort, etc.

Reflect on the first few months of 2024. What headwinds of resistance have been keeping you from reaching your goals?

The bad news is that the year is nearly half over. The good news is that you still have six months to make 2024 your best year.

There’s still time.

Setting Goals

Most people need to become more familiar with how to set appropriate goals.

In January every year, people usually write down two to three goals in each of the following categories: personal finance, relationships, jobs/business, spiritual, and personal.

In fact, this year, the top six New Year’s resolutions were to improve fitness, improve finances, improve mental health, lose weight, improve diet, and make more time for loved ones.

But here’s what typically happens: We’re told to prioritize our goals and set a deadline to achieve them. Then, make a list of tasks to accomplish those goals by the allotted date.

Unfortunately, this type of goal-setting only leads to failure.

Consider how many Januarys have come and gone where you’ve written goals; June arrives, and you’ve barely looked at them; December arrives, and you’ve not achieved them. This is because they are overwhelming and out of reach.

Goal-Setting That Works

Setting goals is more than dreaming about the kind of life you want.

Goal setting is about creating a life vision for yourself where you successfully achieve your goals without any specified time limits.

Not setting a time limit for your goals may be a new concept.

However, by setting a time limit for achieving your goals, you are setting yourself up for failure, and here’s why.

If you set a time limit on a goal that is sooner than you could conceivably expect to achieve it, your mind will tell you that it is impossible, you will feel overwhelmed, and your productivity will plummet.

On the other hand, if you set your goals for a time that is considerably out of reach, then your mind will tell you that you have a significant amount of time to achieve this goal and that you can “start tomorrow” and not have to work towards it anytime soon.

The Power of A Life Vision

When you create a life vision in which you see yourself accomplishing your goals or enjoying the fruits of your labor, you are more likely to work towards achieving those goals and avoid failure.

Next, set “process tasks” that take you in the right direction and into the reality of your vision.

It’s almost a cliche, but fall in love with the process not the payoff.

The chasm between where you are and where you want to be is bridged by a process—by a batch of certain habits and tasks—that gets you there.

These tasks will have a timeline and strategies, which you should initiate and track using as many time management productivity tools as you find necessary. Unless you measure your progress regularly, you will never follow through. And this time next year, you will be in the same place you are today.

Accomplishing your goals is a matter of keeping them at the top of your mind and in your current consciousness, where you will continue to make forward movement in your task list daily to sustain momentum, much like standing next to a fire to keep warm.

Setting goals isn’t about identifying tasks but discovering what you truly want in life and the person you want to become and establishing a road map to the final destination that unlocks your best life.