Today I want to talk to you about the importance of setting goals.
If you want to achieve your desires in life, be it work success, improved relationships, or saving money, you must have a mindset that is focused on success.
I never understood the importance of setting goals until recently, because I was not raised that way and none of my friends set goals either. No one to learn from. Sigh.
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Are You Ready To Set Some Goals?
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When I started blogging I kept reading about goal setting.
So I bought some books, followed some YouTube videos and signed up for every free resource I could find. I was so clueless about goal setting that I wanted anything and everything that anyone could teach me.
My big question was how do you set goals when you don’t know what your goals are? I mean “making a ton of money” is just not a realistic goal because it is too vague.
I know this because it was the first thing I tried…and it did not work.
So I signed up for yet another free goal setting course
“Crushing It” is the name of the goal setting course from Living Well, Spending Less.
After I bought a planner from Living Well (you can see what it looks like here), I was invited to join the Crushing It community and I was super excited.
This will help for sure! And actually it did help me.
I went through the course using printables that match the planner pages. As I started setting weird and random goals, because I was new at this, I started to get it.
The key to successful goal setting is to just start and learn as you go.
My last planner was too generic and vague and was not designed for goal planning.
But this new shiny one from Living Well was born for goal planning! As I set my goals each month, it gets easier to figure out what goals to set. That is because in the beginning you have a lot of goals to reach for and it can be hard figuring out which ones are the most important.
(PS. If you want a $5 off coupon for one of the Living Well planners, send me an email. The coupons are time sensitive)
You can develop a goal-setting mindset
It takes practice to focus on attaining your dreams, overcoming obstacles, and realizing your true potential.
A goal-setting mindset is one that focuses squarely of the target, remains focused in spite of setbacks, and understands that hard work and determination will see you through to the finish line.
This is where I used to fail at goal setting. Setting vague goals or having too many and getting overwhelmed.
Why is goal setting important?
Goals give us something to reach for. We use each goal that we achieve as a stepping stone for the next goal, always moving forward.
This is how people become “successful”, by having a plan and going for it.
To quote the ball player Yogi Berra:
If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace elseClick To TweetI am sure that you do not want to end up far away from your desires, so let’s look at what we can do about creating a goal-setting mindset.
Related Post: How To Set Goals In 5 Easy Steps
Ideally, as a blogger you would set 1 to 3 business goals, focusing on one or two of them each month. Then set at least one goal for each of the other parts of your life:
- Relationships
- Health & wellness
- Home
- Finance
Your goals can overlap but it is important to only work on up to three goals at any one time to avoid overwhelm.
For example, have one blog goal, one health goal, and one home improvement goal. As you complete one goal, add in a new one in to the mix.
Setting several types of goals helps you develop the “habit” of goal setting and makes setting future goals easier.
And you have the added benefit of improving more than one area of your life. win-win!
Understanding the Goal-Setting Mindset
If you want to attain a goal, your actions and habits will get you there eventually. But it’s your mindset that sets the stage for what you do.
When your mindset is focused on goal-setting, you are much more likely to engage in actions that lead to goal achievement.
Whether your goal is to be healthier, get a new job, reach a monetary savings target, or graduate from college, be clear about what you want to achieve.
Even if you are not quite sure what you think is the right goal, setting and working to achieve goals can help you to decide. This is why it is best to start right away and figure out what you really want as you go along.
Decide what your end goal should be
If you decide to start improving your health, brainstorm all the ways that you can achieve this goal (drink more water, eat more vegetables, go for a daily walk).
Then pick one of these as your first goal.
You may discover that a daily walk is out of the question right now because of all the construction in your neighborhood, so you adjust your goal.
Instead of a daily walk you vow to take the stairs whenever possible for 30 days.
If that goal did not give you the results you were looking for, try it again for 30 days.
Every time you have to adjust your goal based on new information, you have learned something about yourself. And what you really want.
Eventually, you will know what activities you actually enjoy, what kind of limitations are acceptable (jogging through road construction), what you don’t like (this is important), and what you can tolerate.
At some point, you will know if you utterly hate jogging or love it.
What you learn from setting goals will help you in your future goal setting (i.e. I hate jogging!).
Aligning with your beliefs and values will help you figure out the steps necessary to attain it.
As well, it can keep you motivated to do the work required for achieving it.
And once you know that something is not acceptable for you, you know to turn down invitations to join the local jogging club. You can move on from that.
So, how can you develop a mindset that is more focused on goal setting?
Developing a Goal-Setting Mindset
The first step toward having a goal-setting mindset is to embrace the power of growth.
A positive mindset that embraces change and challenge in life will help you to set lofty but attainable goals, learn from your mistakes, and consider all kinds of possibilities for yourself.
This growth-oriented mentality helps you see that life is a never-ending process of growth and change, whereby you are constantly setting new goals for yourself.
The next step is to look for all the ways you are already successful in life:
- What are things you are already doing that are putting you closer to realizing your dream?
- Do you have strengths that you can build upon to get where you want to be next?
- Is there something about these successes that give you positive feelings about your life?
- How did you achieve this success and did you learn anything on the way?
- Did achieving this goal give you the desired results?
If you do not get the results you were hoping for, do not consider this failure.
Instead, see it as feedback and use it to decide what you really want.
In the above example, you may have discovered that jogging is tedious and not your idea of improving health.
Instead you decide to start swimming three times a week.
You not only adjusted your goals, but you learned something about yourself so that you can course correct in the future.
Look for ways to learn from people
Seek out the people in your life who are successful or who have attained similar goals. If you don’t know people like this in real life, join groups on Facebook or other forum.
Start looking for people who are just a bit further ahead; they can help encourage you to get to the next step.
Talk to them about what worked for them and their thinking or tips on the importance of setting goals.
Focus on what is currently working well, and use these to further your work toward setting new goals and reaching them.
Watch out for negative self talk, and if possible, avoid people who are negative about your goals.
You may want to set a goal to say something positive to yourself each day to cancel out any negative thoughts.
Choose positive affirmations that are aligned with what you want your life to be like:
- Success is my birthright
- Money comes easily and frequently
- I am living my dream life
While you want to be realistic about what you need to do, you don’t need anyone, including yourself, telling you that you can’t do something.
As well, you do not have to share your goals with anyone. Try to find positive thinking people to talk to about goal setting.
Be clear about your vision and objectives
And be clear about how attaining your dreams will affect your life.
Visualize your life when you have reached your goal.
- How will you feel?
- What will be different?
- Why is this important to you?
Visualizing the result is helpful for staying motivated while you are working toward a goal.
Visualization is a great way to figure out if this goal is what you truly want.
An example of this might be visualizing living in a mansion.
You may want a mansion because this is what you think success looks like. In reality, what will really make you feel successful is a house full of friends and family and the free time and money to spend with them.
Visualizing and goal setting help you to gain clarity about what you really want.
The other benefit to visualizing your goals that you will often discover things that you did not know that you wanted.
You may discover that you are motivated by how you want to feel above all else, and that is what is driving your goal setting.
My word for this year is “freedom” and I am motivated by feeling free of everything – clutter, debt, unhealthy relationships, health issues etc.
My goals are based on helping me achieve this freedom.
Take Care of your health
Cultivate healthy habits of body and mind that will help you focus on the importance of setting goals to achieve your dreams.
When you neglect your health, you won’t be able to fully enjoy the fruits of your hard work toward your goals.
And if you have brain fog, you will not be able to set good goals because you cannot focus on what you really want.
- Get enough sleep
- Watch your stress levels
- Eat a healthy diet
- Get outside for some fresh air and sunshine.
These healthy habits will allow you to reach your goal and thoroughly enjoy what you have accomplished.
Conclusion
A goal-setting mindset keeps you focused on what is important to you as and gives you the mentality and motivation to pursue your dreams. Mindset plays a crucial role in success, and the importance of setting goals is one that can propel you to achieve just about anything you want in life.
Please share this post with others who may benefit and sign up for my FREE weekly newsletter of exclusive content, tips, and free stuff for bloggers, including my Goal Setting checklist, Branding with Canva cheatsheet, or my Passive Income Checklist.
Until next time, happy blogging and follow me on Pinterest!
-Irma 🙂
This is really perfect blog post! I am pretty sure, that many people just do not realise how important is have our goal somewhere else, like in our mind. You have to have it written first, otherwise it is just a dream .
I liked your idea of working on 3 goals simultaneously. Higher number would be overwhelming, but this one is perfect from additional reason and that is inspiration. Often times you work on your health(fitness)
and you found out solution for your business.
I think you wrote the article in interesting and yet easy to understand way. I hope it will help many people to achieve their goals.
Thank you Julius and thank you for visiting us today,
I usually only work on two goals at a time, but I always have three goals for every month. This way if I have to step back from a goal, to see where I am at with it, I do not feel bad for missing a few days or a week of working on that goal. And I am still working on other goals. This give me balance and perspective, and that may help you when planning your monthly goals.
Cheers,
-Irma 🙂
Very good post, it is important to set goals for yourself whether it’s short term goals or long term goals. I need to start to have more goals. I wrote down my own personal goals that I want to achieve in 2019; but other than that, I don’t really write down any other goals that I want to achieve like from 5 to 10 years from now. I also realized that I need to be more specific with my goals as well.
Hello Scott and thank you for visiting us today,
I did that as well when I was first starting. The more specific your goals are the easier it is to see the steps and to implement them.
If you are a blogger, a good 5 year goal is to make $100K a month with your blog. You may achieve that goal sooner, but it still helps to be thinking about what it is that you really want. Not all bloggers want a million dollar a year company if doing that is going to impede their other lifestyle goals. And some people do not want employees, but would rather just have enough income to allow them to live freely (like me).
Cheers,
-Irma 🙂
Hi Irma,
100% agree with this post if you want something you have to go out and get it.! For most of us things don’t just fall in our lap, we must figure out what we want and set realistic goals to get it.
If you don’t set goals and work towards them then the odds of achieved what you want are slim.
As you said the first step is understanding where you want to be and in what realistic time frame.
Thanks for the article it’s a great read 🙂
Hello Anthony and thank you for visiting us today!
I agree, especially now that I know how to properly set goals. I have 10 year, 5 year, 3 year, 1 year, quarterly and monthly goals. It seems like a lot but then I do have a lot that I want to accomplish 😉
Cheers,
-Irma 🙂
Very good post, gives you a completely (at least for me) new perspective and view of setting goals 🙂
Did not know that setting goals was that important.
I should set more goals
Hello Simon and thank you for visiting us today!
I hear that. That was me a couple of years ago. Goal setting has changed how I do almost everything on my blog. I encourage you to set some humongous goals and then go for it!
Cheers,
-Irma 🙂
Great article on goal setting! I find it invaluable in my personal and professional life. It is a good breakdown to start from scratch if you’ve never set goals before. Finding the right planner is so helpful too! Thank you.
Hello Rhonda and thank you for visiting us today,
I seriously cannot do my goal setting now with my planner!
Cheers,
-Irma 🙂
Hi Irma, great post on setting goals I signed up for the weekly goalplanner sheet and followed you on pinterest.
As you say it all about mindset, you have to get your head in the right frame of mind to achieve anything. I recently used a positive mindset of losing weight. I lost 56lb in a year and have never felt better. You have to look after you health if you want to stay positive I think. If you feel bad about yourself it doesn’t help you in other aspects of your life.
Thanks for the information and I look forward to your emails .
Frank
Hello Frank and welcome to the tribe!
You are so right! I know that I had to start adding in more healthy foods before I really started to feel good. I was working on my positive thinking but when I changed my diet it was like I had turned a corner on positivity street. I can clearly see more of the path towards some of my goals and this gives me a lot of hope, so I know that I am closer to achieving them.
Cheers,
-Irma 🙂
I really appreciate this post. I like the idea of setting goals in more than one area of like as I seem to run head first after one goal, chasing it madly, and in the process destroy other areas of my life. Over the past 2.5 years I have been running 2 businesses on the side of working full-time and I have lost many friends over how busy I am. At times I’m ok with my choices, and at times, it’s hard to know what is truly worth the sacrifice. I need to come back to your article tomorrow, and read the part about visualizing my life with my goals achieved more. I really need to check in that all my goals in areas of my life are moving in the same direction. Thank you for this
Hello Kendra and welcome back!
I used to have a hard time visualizing because I was focused on a set outcome. But I have found out that that actually stifles creativity and the potential for a better outcome.
Lately I have been able to tune in more to the feeling that I want to feel about my life, and that is moving me toward slightly different goals which have a similar outcome. A great method that I have learned about visualization is to think about the outcome that you want i.e. financial freedom. Think about how you would live your life if you had all the money you would ever need. Do not worry about how you will get it, just think of the end result that you want.
Then think of something that makes your heart full, like when your child was born or how you felt the day you got married or some other happy time. Reach for those happy moments and feel the feelings. Then while you are “in the moment” start relating those feelings to your end result scenario. What you want is to feel that level of happiness in the future when you have reached your goal.
I found that the more often I could do this, the more awesome ideas came to me for my business. My path seemed easier to find and the directions were clear to me. I think this is because I am actively thinking about what I really, really want. Not some random idea of success or health or wealth, but rather what my own personal future will look like.
Best of luck to you!
Cheers,
-Irma 🙂
I love that quote “If you don’t know where you are going you will end up someplace else”. To me that really sums up the importance of setting goals.
I remember when I never set goals, it was so hard for me to pinpoint what I had accomplished and what my future plans were. But when I started setting short and long term attainable goals it made it easier to know what direction I was going and it was even easier to build upon my previous goals that I had already accomplished.
As you mentioned it is about having a goal setting mindset. Even if you fail at your goal it is ok because that is the beauty of it – It’s a goal but not the end all be all! We can analyze what steps we need to take to achieve the goal in the future.
I love this article because it is jam packed with many nuggets that can be life changing. Thanks for sharing.
Hello Nate and welcome back,
You are welcome. I cannot tell you how much better my life is now that I set goals. Just being able to check things off of my monthly calendar is so refreshing! I write out my 3 goals for the month and I have a sticky note to remind me. When I finish a project, I check it off and then look for the next goal in the series. I am moving so much further ahead and I am more focused on what matters every day, letting the fluff blow away.
Cheers,
-Irma 🙂