Goal Setting!

I wanted to jot down my thoughts here about why its important to set life goals and also note some techniques that i’m trying out this year 🙂

Have you ever felt that life is passing by very quickly and you seem to have little control of it? Often in life, we are so busy and stuck in the day to day grind that we forget to see the bigger picture. We don’t spend time to think about what we truly want in life, the experiences and things that matter and how to achieve them.

How about taking the time out of set your “Life” goals? Goals to make sure that your life is going in the direction you want. To ensure that it all fits together – your passions, priorities and ambitions.

They say that, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. Setting life goals helps you be consciously aware of all these wants and fine tunes your attention accordingly. Goal setting not only allows you to take control of your life, but also provides you a benchmark for determining whether you are actually succeeding. Having a goal written down with a set target date gives you something to plan and work for, making you more motivated, focussed and likely to achieve it

Coming to some techniques that have worked for me –

1) Build a mind-map

If you are new to mindmaps, checkout my blog that has a sample mindmap. Mindmaps help you generate, visualize and organize all of your ideas and build out the bigger picture. The great thing about mind mapping is that you can put your ideas down in any order, as soon as they pop into your head. You can start out by highlighting the main themes you want to focus and have the specific goals branch out from these core themes.

 A few things to keep in mind,

a) Have a very clear purpose for your goals. I personally chose to focus on all the things that would make me happy, satisfied or equip me with skills for a better future. Having a strong purpose is key to ensuring that you stay motivated

b) Its not only important to have specific goals but also goals that you have control over

For eg: Instead of setting a goal like “You want to lose 10 pounds”, set a goal that you can control like “Go to the gym for 1 hour every day”. An even better goal would be to cut some slack for yourself and be realistic in the first place for eg: “Go to the gym for an hour 4 times a week”

2) Once you have a mindmap, the 2nd step is to break the big picture down into smaller, manageable tasks and create an action plan.

• Pick your immediate priorities and set goals only for 3 months.
• Do not plan around what you want to achieve beyond 3 months! Sticking to just 3 months will ensure that you don’t get distracted trying to overthink or worry about how you don’t see the finish line.

3) Review periodically and tweak your goals

In your day to day, its hard to get a sense of what you’ve achieved. Its a great idea to spend time once a month to get a sense of of whether you are on target and make necessary tweaks

Some questions to answer while reviewing your goals –

a) What went well this month?

b) What could be improved?

c) Tweaks required for next month

As an example – one of the things that consistently shows up in my improvement areas is binge watching Netflix.

I’m trying to finish a course but I get distracted with Netflix. Now, I’ve made an improvement to my goals to only watch Netflix for an hour or less on a weekday. No limits over the weekends. And if i still feel lazy and tempted, I try to watch youtube videos related to the course i’m taking.

A lot of times what you’ll notice is that, following through on even 1 goal consistently, can lead to benefits beyond the scope of that goal. Fitness goals are perfect examples of that.

For eg: Recently, I set a goal of going to 30 yoga classes in 45 days. I was surprised by how so many other aspects of my life were impacted.

a) I started eating healthy without my knowledge – was not even tempted to eat unhealthy food. I’ve put in so much effort to stay fit, why would i want to reverse the results from my workout

b) Became more organized – need to be conscious of your schedule, so automatically more organized

c) Became more focussed – got work done in a shorter period of time, had more energy through the day – so i could take up additional personal projects or catch up with more friends

Imagine how much you can achieve if you are conscious of your long term goals every single day of your life. The reality is, once you’ve started to think about what it is you want to get out of life, you’ll start to fill your time with all those things that help you achieve it. And get rid of the things that counter it or are doing you no good.

The secret to getting ahead is getting started. I hope you get started with these actions for the new year and make 2018 the best year of your life!