Once you’ve made the decision to change your life and to set some goals, it can be an exciting time when planning for your future. It can be easy to get caught up in the excitement of these changes, an excitement that can wear off once reality starts to kick in an you find that achieving these goals is a lot harder than setting these, particularly with the many distractions that are eating into your day using up a lot of your valuable time.
So for those with busy lives, how can we stay focused to achieve our goals?
Below we go through some tips to help you stay on your path to success.
Focus on your time management and a detailed calendar
When you are in the process of setting your goals or soon after you have completed this exercise plan out your calendar with time focused on achieving that particular goal or goals. When putting together your new calendar incorporate your family in the exercise so you aren’t sacrificing quality family time or simple activities such as picking up the kids from school.
Whilst it’s great that you are setting goals, spending all your time after dinner working on these while neglecting your loved ones isn’t so great. Be prepared to compromise. Involve the people close to you in your calendar planning and most importantly stick to your calendar. Let people know that when a certain task or allocation of time occurs, that will be your only focus (you can do this at work as well).
Try and take the approach that if it’s not in the calendar, it’s not a priority (unless it’s an emergency). That way it will become habit and you can use either an old school method such as printing out and putting a calendar on the fridge or using an app on your phone however get in the process of planning your week say on a Sunday night or early Monday morning then stick to what is in the calendar. Even allocate time to leisure or family time that way you are present for the time you spend with family and loved ones.
Tune out outside noise and eliminate negativity
Let’s say that you’ve been in the process of making changes to your life such as health and career and there are other people in your life who may not be on board with your new goals. They might be questioning why you are doing this or they might even suggest that you are wasting your time and you won’t achieve these goals.
Tune these people out. They are either threatened that you are doing something positive for yourself or they are likely jealous of what you are going to achieve. The quicker you cut out these negative people from your life the better and more enjoyable it will become. You will have more energy as you don’t have to waste it on these people.
Ignore as best you can what’s happening at work, what’s happening around the world, people in your life complaining, etc. Focus on what you can control, stick to your routine, focus on improving every day and giving 100% and you will surprise yourself on what you can (and will) achieve.
You are on a different path than most of these people, if they can’t respect your new way of life try to avoid them as much as possible.
Be consistent
Working 30 minutes a day on your goal is a lot more helpful than working for a 2 hour burst once a week. At least if you are working towards something on a near daily basis this goal is constantly in your thoughts, you will be able to think about new ways or ideas to put towards your goal. By approaching a goal with haphazardly effort or focus, not only are you not respecting the goal you are having to your time and resources to revisit stuff you did a week or so ago.
Also if you find yourself struggling with time during a particular day or week, don’t stress. Take care of what you need to take care of then get back on the path to achieving your goal or goals. Life happens, it’s easy to get caught up in outside forces and to throw your hands up in the air and want to give up, dust yourself off and get back on that path!
Also when working on your goal, make sure the activity is pushing you towards that goal. Don’t stay busy for the sake of being busy though. Inspired focused action will get you to where you want to go, if you need to spend more time planning out the next step to take do that rather than wasting time on unnecessary actions that won’t get you to your goals.
Use an accountability partner and check in regularly
As we’ve talked about previously, having an accountability partner on your goal journey can be invaluable, particular if that person has achieved what you are looking to achieve. They can point in you in the right direction or give you some inside tips on your journey.
Alternatively having an accountability partner also enables you to have someone to bounce ideas off, to check in to see if you are on track and is someone who can give you the odd pep talk or two (or kick up the behind) when you need it.
When selecting your accountability partner make sure that person is close enough to you that they are willing to help you out and care enough about you to see you succeed whilst also not afraid to ‘keep it real’ with your goals journey.
Also check in with your goals at least once a month to make sure you are still on track. There is nothing worse than investing all this time and effort to find out you are way off what you are trying to achieve. Regular check ins allow any slight deviations to be brought back into line and help keep you focused on the prize.
Taking that leap into a new life through the setting and achieving of goals is to be commended. Staying the course in spite of what life will throw at you is to be admired and will be rewarded with some amazing changes and accomplishments. Keep believing in yourself, reach out to others who have tread a similar path to what you are on and be consistent.