How to Actually Achieve Your Goals

Have you ever wondered, “How do I actually make progress toward my goals?” I get it. It can be really freaking daunting to stare at a big goal and wonder where to dig in, especially if it’s something you’ve never done before. Today we’re going to break down 4 steps you can follow to help you actually make your goals happen!

STEP 1: Make sure your goals are specific.

You can’t accomplish what you don’t know. If you don’t have your goals clearly defined, you’re going to have a hard time making them happen. Writing goals is such a personal thing, and I honestly don’t think there is one way to do it “right” but SMART goals are extremely popular and what I was taught to use when helping my clients write goals when I was a personal trainer. SMART goals are:

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Timely

Personally, I don’t use the SMART goals formula to a tee with most of my goals. I leave off the T so I guess I follow the SMAR goal formula, lol. I’ve found that having a strict timeline does not motivate or encourage me but actually discourages me. If I don’t meet the timeline, I get frustrated and am tempted to throw in the towel completely. But listen, if working under a strict timeline motivates you, then by all means, tack a deadline on that goal of yours!

And some goals do require a timeline so keep that in mind. I’ve just learned that for myself, when possible, I prefer a looser structured goal approach because I tend to get tunnel vision and block out all other things in my life that aren’t directly related to the goal I’m working toward if there is a tight timeline on it. I am a bigger fan of creating habits that ensure that I’m taking consistent steps toward my goals. This also allows me to enjoy the journey and make going after my goals part of my lifestyle rather than being this pressure-driven thing.

Another thing I want to mention about goal setting is visualization because it can help you get specific if you’re not already. Visualizing our goals as we brainstorm allows us to really tap into our heart’s desires and uncover what it really is that we’re after. Plus it’s really fun to imagine yourself already doing whatever it is you’re after. Like sometimes when I’m at Barnes and Noble, I’ll pause for a second and imagine my book sitting there on the shelf next to some of my favorite authors’ books. Do I have a book? Nope. Not yet. But visualizing it allows me to go there. It gives me a peek at what it is I’m after. It gets me feeling excited about the goal instead of defeated or overwhelmed by it.

Crafting your goals is a big deal, okay? It’s not something that you should take lightly because it really matters. Now I don’t say this to put pressure on you to have these perfectly planned out goals but I do want you to know that having goals keeps us growing as people. Having goals keeps us from getting stagnant or waking up one day 10 years from now and wondering how we got there, living a life that we’re not passionate about. You cannot create your dream life if you don’t know what that looks like. In the Hustle Sanely Program, we learn about 4 guidelines to write Hustle Sanely-formatted goals:

• Write your goals in the present tense, as if you’ve already accomplished them.

When we do this, our brain accepts them as truth and you are more likely to work toward making them reality.

• Attach your why.

Knowing what your goal is rooted in is important because if you know WHY you want to accomplish something, you are more likely to do it.

• Create habits that point back to your goals.

Writing goals is all well and good. But unless you put action with them, they’re pointless. Habits are ways that we can ensure that we are making consistent progress toward our goals. I usually pair 2-3 habits with each goal. Habits don’t necessarily make our goals happen but they hold us accountable to showing up to the the work required to make them happen if that makes sense.

• Reflect on your progress monthly.

I’ve shared an example of a Hustle Sanely-formatted goal before but for good measure here it is again:

Maybe one of your goals is living debt-free. To visualize this, you imagine going on 2-3 family vacations a year and being present and enjoying the time with your family because you are not stressing out about finances. You imagine taking your kiddo back to school shopping at the end of the summer without sweating bullets as you watch each item be scanned. You imagine checking the mail without the fear of a massive credit card bill being tucked in your mailbox. You are a good steward of your finances.

So an example of a specific way to write this goal would be:

My family is living debt-free, and I am able to be mentally present and enjoy vacations.

So that’s the base goal (living debt free) and the why (so you can be mentally present and enjoy vacations with your family). I know it’s common to attach timelines to goals and I get it, that works for some people. I feel more disciplined and aligned when I know WHY I’m working toward a goal rather than when it needs to be done by. So instead, I like to have habits that go along with my goals and I use these habits to keep me on track with my goal checkpoints, which we’ll talk about in a bit.

Some habits that I might pair with this debt-free example:

- My family has a weekly budget meeting on Sundays for accountability

- I go out for coffee 1 time per week (as opposed to every day)

- Before purchasing something that is not a necessity, I ask myself, “Is this worth prolonging my goal of being debt-free?”

Some broad, more blanket-statement habits that can apply to any goal might be:

- Work on tasks that have to do with your goals for 2 hours every Monday night

- Wake up an hour early Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays to work on tasks related to your goals.


But like I always tell y’all about everything I teach you - use it as a foundation and make it work for you. If you excel racing a clock to make your goals happen, then girl, you go. Write something like:

My family is living debt-free by 2022, and I am able to be mentally present and enjoy vacations.

Also last thing about making sure your goals are specific: don’t be afraid to GO BIG! We are talking about your life here. Why would you not give yourself the opportunity to freaking GO for it - whatever your it is:

- Don’t be afraid to say you want to be Diamond in your Young Living business even if you're a Star rank right now.

- Don’t be afraid to say you want to get your nursing degree if you’re 35 and have 3 little babes running around.

- Don’t be afraid to say that you want to start a YouTube channel and document your adventures of traveling the world with your best friend.

Okay so now that your goals are specific, let’s get into the action steps.

STEP 2: Do a guided brain dump.

Things seem way more daunting when they are floating around in our minds but when we put them to paper they seem less scary so I do this guided brain dump exercise that I’ll walk you though so you can try it if you want to. I’m a super visual person so this exercise really helps me.

Grab a piece of paper and write your goal up top.

Under that write your why.

Under that write your 2-3 habits that point back to the goal.

Draw a square under that and divide that square into 4 equal, smaller squares. Here’s what I want you to do with the squares:

1. Top left box aka the “I’ve Got This” box:
   Write all the tasks you know you need to do to accomplish that goal that you feel equipped to do right now. 

2. Top right box aka the “OMG What?” box:
   Write all the tasks you know you need to do to accomplish the goal that you have no idea how to do.

3. Bottom left box aka the “Get the Ball Rolling” box:
   From what you wrote in the top left box, choose the first 3 items you’re going to take action on and do and write them in this box.

4. Bottom right box aka the “Support” box:
   Write questions you have and resources (like people or websites or podcasts) that you can consult and use to figure out a next step

If y’all want me to do like an IGTV video showing you how to do this, let me know and I’ll make that happen!

STEP 3: Do something to build momentum.

The first thing you wrote in the Get the Ball Rolling box - freaking do it. I mean you remember Newton’s First Law of Motion from middle science class right - that an object in motion stays in motion - so get the ball rolling, girl, because even a small victory will give you that boost to move onto the next thing and the next thing and before you know it, you’re tackling the OMG What? box on your list!

STEP 4: Define your checkpoints and create a plan.

Once you have your goals laid out, you know what you’re trying to achieve, it’s time to create a plan which requires a lot of chunking and reverse engineering. Chunking is basically turning your goals into bite-sized mini goals, I call them checkpoints, that act as a road map to the big one, okay? And reverse engineering is when you create a plan with the end in mind, like working backwards.

So you have the main goal with your 2-3 habits, right? Next, grab your brain dump list to help guide you and set checkpoints.

Checkpoints:

• What tasks do I want to have done 12 months from now?

• What tasks do I want to have done 6 months from now?

• What tasks do I want to have done 3 months from now?

• What tasks do I want to have done 1 month from now?

Then use those checkpoints to create an action plan for each week within the given months. What do you need to do each week to make sure those monthly tasks are done? Now obviously each goal is going to require different checkpoint increments based on how large the goal is. But this is the process I have used to help me reach both large and small goals. For the paper planner, I have used a 12-month checkpoint outline and when I started this podcast, I used a 3-month checkpoint outline.

Another reason I’m not a huge fan of attaching time restrictions to goals that don’t need it, is because sometimes as you complete a task, you learn that there are more tasks within that task. For example, while I’ve been working through creating the paper planner, I have figured out that my task of “choose packaging” is actually more like:

1. Decide what kind of internal packaging to use (aka what the planner is wrapped in inside the box).

2. Decide what kind of box or mailer to use.

3. Design boxes.

4. Order boxes.

5. Design mailer to go inside box.

6. Order mailer to go inside box.

See what I mean? I didn’t know all of these tasks when I wrote “choose packaging” in my brain dump boxes when I started working on this goal. As I tackled each task though and had momentum going, I came to the task labeled “choose packaging” and was able to break it down once I started researching and asking questions.

“When we use habits and checkpoints like this to work toward our goals, we are less likely to feel burnt out and overwhelmed as we work toward our goals AND we are more likely to achieve our goals in a sustainable way because we are working on them in small chunks weekly.”

What it comes down to - the best way to achieve your goals is to start. Period.

You can do 100 brain dump exercises, make a list of 50 tasks, have habits attached to each goal, have checkpoints that correlate with each goal but if you don’t make a move then it’s not happening, you know?

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If you enjoyed this post, tune into episode 042 of The Hustle Sanely Podcast to listen into this topic!