It’s a few months into the new year and I find myself talking a lot with friends and family about New Year resolutions made and already abandoned. You know those resolutions or goals as I call them. I’m going to start running. I’m going to start eating healthier. I’m going to find a better job. But those running shoes you bought are still in the box, your meals have consisted of cookies and fast food, and your resume is sitting on your dust collecting dust while waiting to be updated. First of all, these are vague goals. I’m going to run a 5K in May. I’m going to start following a low carb diet. I’m going to find a job with better benefits. Those are more specific goals to work toward. Okay, goal-making lesson over. Moving on.
Now, I use a planner to keep track of my life. In the beginning, there is a section to write down yearly goals, but my planner starts in August so I can plan with the school year. Even though I wrote out my goals back in August and I made a point to make my goals more specific, I found myself agreeing with my friends. I had not kept up with working to achieve my goals and my year was already half over.
My friends were giving up already, but I had goals for my business, my health, my family, and I really didn’t want to blow them off. Again. I was starting to feel like I had failed myself. Again. It was dragging me down and I was getting grouchy over it. My family really hates Grouchy Mama so I had to come up with a solution. Since I love my planner and seeing everything in writing, I came up with my Weekly Goal Sheet.
When I’m planning for each month, I look at my yearly goals, where I’m at, and what steps I need to take next to get me closer to my ultimate goals. While I have many goals, I choose three each month to work on. In the Year Goal section, I write out the three ultimate goals from my planner. In the Month Goal section, I write down one smaller goal for each that I can work to accomplish that month. In the Week Goal sections, I write down three small things I can do that week to help me achieve my monthly goal. Since I’ve been thinking about it already, it doesn’t take me long to fill out my sheet. It hangs up over my desk so I can see them every day. Each Sunday, I take a few minutes to fill it out while I’m filling out my planner for the next week and making my grocery list.
Now…truth time. Can I say I accomplish all my tasks each week? I really wish I could say yes because I love crossing things off my list and that feeling of accomplishment. But no. I don’t always complete all my tasks. Sometimes life just gets in the way and I have to give myself a little grace and adjust my goals for next week.
Is that Weekly Goal Sheet truly effective? Yes. Yes it is. Without it, my goals would be forgotten and just something I wrote down in the front of my planner and never looked at again. It’s been a great way to remind myself what I want to accomplish and breaks down that big goal into little manageable chunks.
If you missed me saying it earlier, I love my planner and there’s a lot of great ones out there. But if you don’t use one, you can still keep track of your goals. Type them into your phone, write them on your bathroom mirror in lipstick, whatever works for you. Just keep them somewhere you see them and can look at them when your filling out your Weekly Goal Sheet.
Still on the fence about whether it can work for you? Give it a try for a month. An honest try. Think of your goals as a promise to yourself. You don’t like breaking promises to others so why break the ones you make to yourself? You can do it for a month, right? And I want to hear how it’s going. Email me, Facebook me, Instagram me, just let me know.
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