Setting Achievable Goals

I feel it is important to have a vision so that your time and energy can be focused on what is important. However, sometimes goals can remain unfulfilled for various reasons and never quite come to fruition.

I recently saw a number of pinterest pins with the following acronym that may be helpful in setting realistic goals which are achievable. SMART goals are:

Specific: Write down exactly what it is you wish to achieve.
Measurable: How will you know that you have achieved the goal(s)? Write down some measurable way in which you know you will be getting closer to your aim. 
Achievable: Be realistic about the steps that you need to take to achieve the goal(s). Write down a list of the smaller steps you will need to take in order to achieve your goal.
Relevant: Think about why you want to achieve the goal(s) you have set. Why are they important to you?
Timeous: What is your time line for achieving your goal(s)?

Once you have considered the SMART way of setting goals it may also be useful to think about how often you need to review your goals. This is often the step where I fall down! Possibly a weekly or a quarterly review may be a helpful way to keep on track with achieving goals. It may be helpful to actually make a note in your diary or planner to check on your progress.

Photo by Aaron Burden

If you use a bullet journal, a helpful popular technique is to make up a "habit tracker" that you fill in daily to have a visual track of new habits that you are attempting to establish in order to achieve your goals. Another useful point to consider is how many goals to focus on at a time in order to remain realistic? Maybe it would be more realistic to focus on just a few goals (even one!) at a time.

My most valuable tip is never to give up, even if your plans are derailed for a time! It is actually fine to just get back on track again if things go wrong for a while. I have learned this through needing to be on a stringent eating plan that goes wrong occasionally,  but then I need to get back to the plan and carry on even though it is tempting to give up completely at times. If your goals are important to you, it is worth following through on your aims even if they take longer than you would like to achieve them.

Do you currently have any goals or aims that you would like to fulfil? What do you think might be getting in the way of achieving your dreams?