birdysparadise

I have been feeling really inspired, motivated, and full of energy as of lately. Maybe it’s the whole new year, new me thing. I know the new year is just another day for most people, but for some people (aka me), it gives us the idea and comfort of a fresh new start. Another year to get it right…or not. New year, new goals! (or maybe the same goals if you haven’t accomplished your old ones yet) One of the most important thing a person can do is set goals. Give yourself something to look forward to. Keep growing. Growth is so powerful. Write down your goals, tell someone, repeat it to yourself daily, maybe even multiples times a day.

Sometimes our words out power our actions though. I’ve been guilty of this many times. Set a goal for myself and make up all the excuses in the world to why I didn’t achieve it. “I don’t have enough time” is my favorite excuse. Truth is, I’m probably just lazy and don’t prioritize my time as well as I should. Also, a lot of the time I just vaguely state my goals and go on with life. Setting goals for yourself gets you started, but how do you really tackle them down and utterly achieve them?

1. Set goals that motivates you. Find the purpose in your goal. Ask yourself: What are you going to get out of it? Why that goal? If you don’t have a purpose to why you want to get something accomplished, then what’s the point?
2. Be specific. Break up your goals. Map it out. Until you get very clear on what you want to accomplish, you will only get something that sorta-kinda-almost-but-not-quite meets it.
3. Be measurable. Set short-term and long-term goals. Make sure your goals are attainable and realistic, but also know how to give yourself a challenge. Only you know your limit. Set a specific time/length on when you want to get them accomplished.
4. Commit to yourself. Focus. Be passionate about your goals. Make sure you follow-up often. See how far along you have come, and how much longer you have left to go. Stick to your goals. Most times, you are going to fail before you succeed. Don’t let your set-backs discourage you. Instead, use it as motivation and come back 5x stronger. You have got to want it more than you don’t.

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Now let me give you an example of what all I just wrote means. A goal of mine in 2018 is to read 12 books this year, so one book a month. After high school, I used to tell myself to read, but my excuse was always that I didn’t have enough ‘free’ time and before I realized it, I read zero to one book all year long. Why is reading important to me? Personally, reading is therapeutic. I love reading self-help/growth books along with poetry. 12 might seem like a big number for people who usually don’t read, but to break it down, I usually read books that averages around 250 pages. Roughly 30 days in a month, so 250/30 = a little over 8 pages I need to read per day. I usually don’t read during weekends, so I know some days out of the week I need to read more than 8 pages. The time of day I usually set to read is right before I go to bed or during lunch when I’m at work. Follow-up. Keep checking progress. I’ll check back at the end of the month, did I finish reading a book? If yes, great! Go onto the next book. If no, figure out how much reading I have to do to finish the book and one more by the end of next month.

Really give thought and map out each one of your goals. In the end, it’s just going to be in your favor and help you grow as an individual.

Make your thoughts turn into reality.