3 Tips for Achieving Your Goals

As winter approaches and the year draws to a close, you may already be thinking about New Year’s resolutions – whether it’s your resolutions from this year or the ones you have planned for this coming up year. If you’re thinking about the goals you set for yourself back in January, you may be wondering how well you accomplished. And, if you didn’t – which you shouldn’t be too hard on yourself if you didn’t- you may be wondering what you can change in your lifestyle that will help you achieve the goals you set for yourself. If you’re interested in making the changes today to accomplish more goals in the future, here are 3 tips that can help you reach success.

Be Reasonable with Yourself

When it comes to setting and achieving your goals, the most important thing is to be reasonable with yourself. If you’re coming from a sedentary life style, it’s better to set the goal of walking an extra mile a week rather than planning to run a marathon in three weeks; or, if you’re not good with budgeting, it’s better to start small than immediately jumping into putting back 30% of your income into savings each week. If you set goals that are unreasonable, you’ll quickly find yourself feeling disappointed, and you may even give up. By setting reasonable goals, you can allow yourself to feel success, which will motivate you in the long run.

Celebrate Everything – Even the Small Milestones

While speaking about being reasonable, it’s important that, along the way to accomplishing your goal, you celebrate the small milestones that you accomplish along the way. If you’re coming from a sedentary lifestyle and your goal is to run in a 5k, then you should celebrate when you are able to run even just one or two miles. Or, if your goal is budget better and save more, go ahead and celebrate when your savings hit certain small amounts, even if they’re not close to the total you want to save. By doing so, rather than feeling discouraged because you haven’t met your goal yet, you’ll be motivated to keep on succeeding and doing a good job.

Understand Why You’re Doing What You’re Doing

While the goal and success are important, the absolute most important thing is to know why you’re trying to achieve that goal and success. If you don’t have a motivation or a drive, completing your task will be much harder – in fact, if you find that you have no reason or motivation, you may even be unable to continue. Without a clear motivation, when things start to get tough – which they will – you’ll find yourself struggling to find a reason to continuing, leading to you lowering your expectations or giving up completely. This is why it’s important to sit down and really think about why you want to accomplish your goal. Try making a list of all the reasons and, when you’re feeling down or discouraged, look at the list and remind yourself why you’re doing it.