Hey! It’s been a minute since I last made a blog post. Please forgive me, but so much change has happened in my life over the last 3 months, and I haven’t had the headspace to write until now. Somewhere, on my long list of things to do, is a detailed account of the major life change I made recently. But this article was already scheduled to be published, so I had to complete it and share first. I will get to the details of the “major change” soon. For this post, I am going to share the top 6 strategies I’ve used to help me crush my goals every time I set them.
You see, I’m one of those people who every time I set a goal, my mind and my body fight, literally. Does this happen to you too? The moment I tell myself, for example my target for this month is to save $100, that’s when I start remembering all the things I “need” and have to spend my money on. Sometimes I even end up spending more money that month instead of savings. Don’t even get me started on the “weight loss one” that’s the worst! The minute I say I’m trying to drop a few pounds, out of nowhere (well, not nowhere) my weight starts going up. It’s crazy! I guess that feeling of always having tomorrow to begin saving or working towards my goals gives me comfort?
Well, in psychology, this phenomenon is referred to as Self-Sabotage. It’s a real thing! It happens when a person does something that creates difficulties in attaining life goals, jeopardizes quality of life, or puts them in danger. Procrastination, comfort eating, self-medicating (drugs or alcohol), and some forms of self-injuries are the most common ones. But there are many others. I personally struggle with procrastination and comfort eating. Notice I said “struggle” and not “struggled” because it’s an on-going battle.
I’ve researched a lot about this topic and practiced several recommendations. Some were easier to adapt than others. So, in the next section, I will share my top 6 strategies I use to crush any and every goal I set. Again, these are the ones that have worked for me over the last 10 years of my life. Researching and experimenting is the only way you will know for sure what works best for you. At the end of the day, if you really want to win, see results and change your life, you will need a solid strategy in place to help you accomplish your goals. So let’s get into mine below:
- Visualization
I’m a visionary. I always have to see and understand things clearly before I act. Every time I set a new goal; I visualize the outcome. I ask myself ”what would success with this goal look like?” I try to imagine how it’ll look and feel when I’ve accomplished my goal. Once I can see it with my mind, I’m able to push myself to achieve it because the images are etched in my brain and fuels my motivation.
2. Planning
One of the biggest mistakes people make when it comes to goal setting is not having a plan in place. The visual picture is worth nothing without a clear pathway towards accomplishing the goal and we all know a goal without a plan is just a wish. So don’t just stop at visualizing the goal, also think about and plan for what needs to be done to achieve your goals. Take the time to write down your goals and what steps you need to take to achieve them. Break down your plan into smaller, manageable daily tasks that you can tackle one by one.
3. Incremental progress
This is probably the hardest yet most significant one for me because I tend to do things on the extreme. I’m either doing too much or doing too little. When I set a goal, I try to do the activities that are the easiest and then increase as I progress. For instance, one year I set an annual savings goal of 6K from my monthly income of 1K. To get to my savings goal of 6K at the end of the year on my 1K a month income, I needed to save 500 a month. This required saving 50% of my income monthly. It seemed easy at the time to cut my budget by 50% right from the beginning, but that plan didn’t even last one month! It’s not realistic to slash your budget drastically like this. The adjustment can be too hard, and you may quit before you ever get started. So, I had to adjust my plan and do it incrementally. Instead of cutting in one go, I cut my spending budget by 10% in the first 3 months and saved it. Once I could easily manage on 10% less, I increased to 15% and so on until a 50% reduction was achieved.
3. Little bites
Once you have a plan and roadmap, take it one day at a time. It’s so easy to get overwhelmed with too many goals and tasks. Focus on the day-to-day activities and leave the rest to be done at the time that they are scheduled. Little bites are so much easier to chew, swallow and digest compared with big bites.
5. Evaluate your progress
Progress evaluation is probably the most important strategy I use to help me accomplish my goals. Whether it’s financial, health or relationship goals, you have to hold yourself accountable for achieving your goals. And the best way to do this is by checking your progress periodically. When you create your implementation plan, you must establish checkpoints (milestones) along the way. Every time you hit a checkpoint; it’ll signal how close you are to accomplishing your goals. This will help you stay on track and ensure that you are making incremental progress towards your goals.
6. Patience
As you work towards accomplishing your goals, you will encounter challenges. It’s important to remember that failure is a natural part of the process. Don’t beat yourself up if you stumble along the way. Rather, use those setbacks as a learning opportunity and adjust your plan as needed. With everything, patience is required. If you don’t give yourself enough time to work on your goals, you will never see enough progress.
Everyone has goals that they want to achieve. Whether it’s earning more money, losing weight, or starting a business, setting goals is important. However, actually accomplishing those goals is easier said than done. The difference between those who set goals and crush them and those who just set goals is vision, strategy and planning. Without these 3 things, goals become fancy daydreams sitting in a display box in your mind.
While my 6 strategies are not the only strategies available for use when it comes to goals, I hope that you can you them as you work towards accomplishing your goals.
As always, don’t forget to like this article, share with your network and leave a comment or question below. I will answer as soon as possible.
Balance with Ade 
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