Douglas: Welcome to the Unleash Your Potential Blog, what question can I answer for you today?
ProgressPursuit: What steps can I take to become more goal-oriented?
Douglas: That is a great question and I am going to answer in just a moment.
But first, I have written in several past blogs about celebrating the little wins. I need to heed my own words. Today’s entry marks a milestone in my 100-day journey. Today is post #50. I did a little happy dance somewhere around #33 and I felt another celebration today was in order. 100 days is a daunting task (over 3 months every day)and it is a big deal to realize we are halfway there. This also means that there are more days behind me, than ahead of me. It also means I have done this for 50 consecutive days. Regardless of the challenges life has handed me, I have made the time to write every day. It also means that assuming an average of 750 per day, I have written around 37,000 words. Considering the number of words in my dissertation (which took me a year to write) was 52,000, it is pretty impressive for only a month and a half. All this is to say, YAY ME! Based on my success, I am confident, no eager to write the next 50 days. Even more, I am already thinking about what my next writing project will be about. After all, it is always good to have a new goal once you attain one.
With that, I will transition to answering the question at hand, which conveniently, is about being more goal-oriented.
The first step towards being more goal-oriented is having goals. So ask yourself, “What are my goals?” Be bold and dream big! What are the things you most want to accomplish? At the same time also be specific. Make sure that the goals you set are SMARTR goals (go back to post #11 to review if you need a refresher). Make sure to write these big goals down. Have them posted somewhere so you can remind yourself what you are working toward.
Once you have big goals, it's time to break them down. If you only have big goals, it can be very daunting and this can lead you to shy away from the goals and put them on the back burner. The next step in being more goal-oriented is to create small, more easily achieved action steps. Instead of focusing on writing 100 blog entries, I just focus on one entry each day. As long as I keep achieving the small 1 day goal, eventually, I am guaranteed the larger goal. Similar to the big goals, write these down as well.
With small action steps in hand, you need to next prioritize the steps. You can’t finish everything at once, so it is important to decide in what order things need to be done. What will you work on today? What will you work on this hour? It's up to you how granular to make the schedule. Some days I find it helpful to have hour-by-hour plans if I am working on a variety of things. I also have a task widget on my phone so that I can see what tasks (my sub-goals) are coming up that need to be finished.
Once you have prioritized you have come to the end of the planning phase. For many people (and I have been one of them), this is as far as they ever get. They are great planners, but when it comes time for rubber to hit the road, they stay. It is critical that after all that planning, “YOU TAKE A STEP!” It doesn’t have to be a huge step. Sometimes the path to better health starts with putting on your shoes, even if you don’t walk anywhere just yet. The point is to take a step and then celebrate the fact that you took the first step. It might be hard, but doing that allows you to build confidence that you can. Focus on the fact that you took the first step and not the size of the first step. That doesn’t matter, progress is progress.
I could write so much more on additional steps towards being more goal-oriented, and in future blog posts, I likely will. However, my goal in these is to keep them to a 3-4 minute read and if I write everything I am thinking and have learned about the topic, this will be a thesis, not a blog post.
Therefore, to get you started on being more goal-oriented remember:
Set BIG goals
Break big goals into small easily achieved ACTION steps
PRIORITIZE your action steps
Take the FIRST STEP.
The fact that you asked this question is a sign that you are ready to become more goal-oriented. Go forth and be successful. I have faith in you!
I hope my answer sheds some light on your question. If you want to dig into this concept further, I encourage you to reach out and set up a conversation. In the meantime, check back tomorrow for the next question in the Unleash Your Potential Series!
Be Well!
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