Can you believe it’s already October? There are only 12 weeks left in this year.
It feels like not that long ago that I was setting my goals for 2018. And I don’t know about you, but a little bit of panic is starting to set in. I feel like there is so much left to do.
What do YOU want to accomplish by the end of this year? There is really not that much time left, especially considering how much busier most of us become during the holidays, which leaves us with even less time to accomplish goals.
It’s time to refocus and recommit to making 2018 an amazing year. Here are some tips to help you get it all done. (That will actually work!)
Commit to small steps every day
What can you accomplish in 5 minutes today? It might not seem like much, but 5 minutes add up to a lot when you commit to consistency. If you commit to working on something 5 minutes a day, that adds up to 2.5 hours of work a month. Will you move mountains in 2.5 hours? Maybe not, but you will make progress.
Over the next 3 months, you could make 7.5 hours of progress on a project. That is enough time to finish something you’re partway through, or to tackle a smaller goal.
If you did 10 minutes a day on your goal, you’d do 5 hours of work in a month. 15 hours by the end of the year.
Now you are really making progress. And all in the same amount of time you might otherwise spend on Facebook in between meetings.
Don’t undervalue small increments of time. They are effective because they’re easy to do every day.
They are also easy not to do. It’s easy to decide “oh, I can skip my 10 minute work session today because it’s only 10 minutes” — but if you do that enough, you will lose out on the consistent progress you wanted to be building.
It is the decision to be consistent that will set you apart from all the people who DON’T achieve their goals this year.
When you take the mindset that *some* progress is better than *no* progress, you set yourself up for success — because often the hardest part is just getting started. After that, it’s easy.
Outline steps and prioritize low-hanging fruit
A big reason why we don’t make progress on goals is because we can’t figure out how to turn the idea into actionable steps. Or we work so hard on something big, but feel like we’re seeing almost no results because the scope is so large.
A lot of times, our most daunting goals get set aside because we just don’t know where to start. It’s hard to see how we will ever make a dent in them.
One of my goals this year was to clean up our garden. We have an amazing garden space that has gotten completely overgrown, and it bothers me every time I walk by it. But I never started working on it, because I always felt like I’d have to spend so much initial time just moving dirt around and seeing no results.
Then one day, I decided to just pull one weed while I was on my way to the car. When I got back home, on my way up to the door, I pulled another weed.
I decided every time I walked by the garden, I would pull one weed. Within just a few days, I could already see a difference. Seeing that change excited me, and actually motivated me to go outside and clear brush for over an hour that weekend. With a few small wins, it seemed easier to take on the bigger challenges.
- How can you turn your goal into small, actionable steps you can take every day?
- What kinds of results will make you feel good about your progress?
- Where will you get early, quick results that mean something to you, your boss, or teammates?
Do a 30 day challenge to supercharge your progress
What if you could give focused attention to just one thing you really want to accomplish?
There is probably a lot on your plate. That is a huge reason why we don’t accomplish our goals — there are always incoming and urgent demands on your time that take priority over the bigger picture things you really want to accomplish.
A 30 day challenge is a chance to take one area of your life and give it intense focus.
If you wanted to lose weight this year, try setting a 30 day challenge of doing weekly meal planning or working up to being able to run 3 miles. If you wanted to read more, your challenge could be to read 10 pages of a book every day for the whole month.
Your challenge can be big or small. But it should be something that is important to you. A 30 day challenge is all about giving the gift of your time to something that matters.
You will see results if you complete the challenge. Where do you really want to see results?
If you’ve been feeling like you wish you “just had a little more time” for something…then this is a simple-yet-effective way to create that time and make it count.
Reevaluate your status and your expectations
You set your goals for this year back in January, or maybe even December last year. Before you take action on something that doesn’t feel quite right, make sure it is still on track for where you are at right now.
Things change all the time. Especially at work. Maybe the goals you set those many months ago no longer apply and that is why you haven’t been making time to make progress on it.
Flip back to your big yearly goals, and especially your yearly theme. Think about where you wanted to be by this time in the year. What do you need to do to still hit that target? It might not be what you thought it would be. It is okay to change.
Some goals are too big. We love the idea of setting your sights high, but then again there is only so much you can truly accomplish in a year.
Is one of your goals not getting done because it’s too big? It might be time to scale it down and refocus on what you can realistically get done in the remaining weeks of this year.
You only have so much time every day, every week, and for the rest of this year. If a goal is no longer a top priority or you don’t have the bandwidth to achieve it fully or well, then the smart move is not to try to force it — the smart move is to adapt and change so that the most important things get done.
You can still accomplish amazing things this year. What will you choose to do?
