The Secret to Reaching Your Goals FASTER.
Do you love setting goals but have issues when it comes to seeing those goals come to fruition? I have been in that camp. If you want to know the secret to reaching your goals faster, read on.
I’d been finding myself super frustrated in many areas of my life — most notably, I observed that I was always busy, but not always productive. Can you relate? I think many of us can. If I am keeping it real with you, this has been a struggle of mine for years- ever since I founded my first company. I kind of drown in the overwhelm– because I don’t take the time to put some structure to my days, simplify things, prioritize and then SCHEDULE my days.
That sounds so simple but I just haven’t been doing it. For the past year or so (and there has been a LOT going on in my life behind the scenes that I will share later– some pretty serious health issues that I had to address and that kept me from working and forced me to take serious down time) I have been diving into my days just being 100% reactive vs. proactive. I’ve had no plan. I’d just jump from one thing to the next thing to the next thing. I’d be easily distracted. I wouldn’t stick to anything long. I was multitasking upon multitasking. I would get to the end of every day– and be TIRED, DEPLETED, FRUSTRATED, and wonder….why am I not finishing the most important things I needed to do?????
Can you relate? Do you feel like you are busy all the time but you aren’t doing the most important things to move you toward your goals? Do you wonder why you are self-sabotaging? I don’t know that any of us do this ON PURPOSE BUT– the bottom line is, we gotta get out of our own way.
How do we do that? How do we stop the cycle of being endlessly BUSY but forever NON-PRODUCTIVE? How do we change our days so that we are MAKING PROGRESS toward our goals while also ENJOYING SOME MARGIN (I.E. SPACE) in our life for enjoyment?? Remember that stuff?
Yea…..when we are disorganized and not focused we also tend to put our self-care last and then we run ourselves ragged and start affecting our health. It’s a vicious cycle that can lead to adrenal fatigue and burnout, damaged hormones, poor sleep and worse.
I shot the video below to talk about the 3 biggest changes — simple but profoundly impactful- I’ve made recently that are making my whole life change for the better in this area. I’ll summarize these points below in case you don’t feel like watching or listening to me babble on. 😉
Know that it doesn’t take 21 days to set a new habit — NO way!! When you think that (which is what everyone says and where that came from I have no idea) — you will think, oh crap, I have to do this new thing for THREE WEEKS before my brain and body adapt…how will I ever do that when I haven’t been doing it for a whole year? Guess what?? My experience shows that REALLY– you can change your behavior in 1-2 days. I talk about this in the video but — test it out.
Try your new habit for- tell yourself- you just have to do it ONE DAY. Maybe it’s getting up 30 minutes earlier. You only have to do it once. Well if you do that TOMORROW…..the hardest part is when your alarm goes off- that’s when you have to make that decision: do I hit the snooze button or get out of bed? If you set yourself up for success (set out your workout clothes, have your partner nudge you or wake up with you, etc.) you’ll do it because you’ve made the COMMITMENT TO YOURSELF.
Once you get out of bed– you are 50% into your new goal. Seriously– you are NOT going to get back into bed– you may still be tired but your brain is already going “Hey I think I can do this”. Then you do the do- you do your workout or your journaling or your meditation or whatever you wanted to wake up earlier for. You see how easy it was to do and how by breakfast time– you aren’t crashing and burning. You are ready for the day. By evening– you are impressed with yourself. You’ve created the scenario where it’s HIGHLY LIKELY YOU WILL REPEAT THIS TOMORROW. When you do it tomorrow….you’ll definitely do it the next day and then….you’ve got this. So– when you are starting to add habits don’t overwhelm yourself thinking it takes a month to establish it. NOPE. You can do 2 days baby!!
** Stop Aiming for PERFECTION. We often don’t start on our goals because we think everything has to be perfect or in place before we start. We think we need to be in shape before we hit the gym (crazy!!) We think our website has to be complete and perfect before it goes live (even Apple puts out products with errors and then fixes them AFTER people buy them!). We think we have to craft the PERFECT email sentences before we do sales outreach to sell our products to make the money to pay our bills….we need to remember, it’s just a person on the other end– just be yourself! Stop worrying about everything being PERFECT and just START. Activity and ACTION ARE YOUR BEST FRIEND. Worrying about perfection is STALLING. Don’t be a staller.
*** Stop over analyzing, over-researching, over-investigating. This is also stalling. I did this for a long time with online courses about EVERY TOPIC!! I spent so much money (don’t get me wrong I love these courses and teachers and learned so much) but I was learning like it was my full time job. You gotta get into execution mode and — ACTIVITY toward your goal!! If you find yourself thinking “I just want to do a little more reading on this before I…..”- stop!! Stop right there!! Put away the internet! Get out your phone or whatever it is you need to use to get into ACTION toward your chosen goal and DO IT!!!
Friends, these tactics are NOT by any means rocket science. But these are things that soooo many of us are doing (the WHAT NOT DO part) and the things I’m saying to do — and to focus on– I’m telling ya– if you change your attitude and DIVE IN with this stuff I believe you will see a noticeable impact in the next 30-60 days in your life. I look forward to hearing all about it. DO TELL.
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!
If you liked this post, you’ll probably want to check out this podcast “How to reach your goals faster– Mindset Hacks That Make a Difference”: CLICK HERE. Also, Practice Makes Progress: Why Repetition is the Most Important Habit to Focus On: CLICK HERE. How to Stop Overthinking Everything: CLICK HERE.
