How To Stay Focused And Accomplish Your Goals
Did you create new goals for yourself in January? Most of us did, right? The beginning of the year is usually associated with a clean slate or a fresh start. 365 brand new days to accomplish your goals.
Like many of you, I start the new year by creating new goals and new things to accomplish. By February, I was completely burned out.
The goals that I set this year were to workout each week, write something every day, and pay off as much debt as possible. By the first week of February, I had given up on each of these goals. It wasn’t that they were too hard. I just had a hard time staying focused.
It is such a struggle to stay focused on your goals. As Millennials, we want to accomplish so many things. We also have so many great ideas and our minds are constantly adding amazing new things to our never-ending to-do list. The problem is, we tend to start the year with too much momentum. A few weeks or even days in, we’re tired.
Life pulls you in so many different directions and on top of that, you still have to work and take care of things at home. Sometimes it seems impossible to accomplish your goals. Goals get pushed to the bottom of the to-do list, and if you’re a procrastinator like me, they stay there.
At some point, you either get fed up and stop working towards those goals, or you do some soul-searching to find out what is really keeping you from accomplishing your goals.
I went through the soul-searching process for the past couple of weeks, and I have learned so much about myself. Today, I want to share that process with you.
Why Do You Need To Accomplish Your Goals?
This is the main question that I had to ask myself. Answering this question taught me so much about my passions and the things that drive me to succeed.
Take my goal of writing something every day for example. I set this goal so that I could become a better writer. This goal is important to me because I will be able to write blog posts faster and create more quality content for each of you to enjoy. I’m passionate about this goal, so I feel like I have failed when I go days without writing. This causes me to lose motivation and focus.
So why do you need to accomplish your goals? If you are finding it difficult to answer this question, you may have chosen goals that you are not passionate about.
Setting your goals quickly at the beginning of the year could cause you to set goals that you aren’t determined to accomplish.
How can you stay focused on your goals if you are not passionate about them? You may find that you have set the wrong goals or maybe they need to be modified a bit.
What Will Happen If You Don’t Accomplish Your Goals?
How would my life be impacted if I didn’t work towards this goal at all? This is important to think about. I set my goals for a reason, so what happens if I never accomplish them.
Let’s go back to my goal to write every day. There is no physical impact if I don’t write every day, but where would that leave my blog? My dream of creating content and courses would never come true. I wouldn’t be able to reach other Millennials that may be struggling with the same things that I am. That scares me. I need to accomplish this goal to become a better writer.
What will happen if you don’t accomplish your goals? Would you still become a doctor? Would you still be able to own your own business?
If there is no downside to you failing to accomplish your goals, you should probably re-evaluate them. Goals are created to challenge you and push you to reach your dreams.
They create the foundation for the other things that you want to accomplish. You may want more time, freedom, money, family, security, or contributions to society.
Whatever it is that you want, your goals should steer your life in that direction. If there is no negative impact when you don’t accomplish your goals, create new goals.
What Is Stopping You From Working Towards Your Goals?
My answer to this question is procrastination. I’m probably the biggest procrastinator that you will ever meet. If I feel like I have time left to complete a task, I’m going to wait until the last possible second to get it done. Sometimes, I won’t complete the task at all.
Why do I do this? I wasn’t sure at first, so I had to get to the bottom of it.
The TED Talk below helped me discover the things about myself and deal with procrastination head-on.
After watching this, I realized that I needed more structure in my life. Just knowing what I had to do wasn’t enough. I needed to plan out my day to make sure that I got things done.
I now add things to my calendar with at personal deadline that is well before the final deadline. That way, if I do procrastinate on my deadline, I still have things done before they are due.
Struggling to stay focused on your goals means that something is holding you up. Are you a procrastinator like me? Have you lost sight of your motivation? Perhaps, you are going about your goals the wrong way?
What seems to be getting in your way? It’s ok to put your goals on hold until you figure this out. You won’t make much progress without knowing your hang-ups. Watch the video above to see if it resonates with you and gives you insight on how to get back on track with your goals.
What Are You Going To Do To Stay Focused On Your Goals?
I had to create a new plan to gain that momentum that I had on the first of January. This meant realizing that I get up faithfully five days a week to go work for someone else and help them accomplish their goals. Why don’t I do the same thing for my goals?
I had to make it clear to myself that I’m not “sacrificing” my time when I get home from work. It is already my time so why not use it to better myself and accomplish my goals.
Yes, I still go to work because I enjoy my job, but my workday doesn’t end when I clock out. I still have to strive to reach my personal goals.
I bought a planner and use it to plan the things that I will do each day. This makes my goal of writing every day a lot easier. I also schedule the days that I’m going to work out and make sure I’m working my side hustle consistently to put all of that money towards debt.
Take some time to create a plan to get back on track. Your plan will help you put things into perspective and gain the momentum that you had in the beginning.
You now know why you need to accomplish your goals and what will happen if you don’t. You also know what made you lose your momentum in the first place. What steps are you going to take to get past the thing that is holding you back?
The Bottom Line
Looking at the big picture sometimes causes us to become overwhelmed. It seems like we want to accomplish so much but there is never enough time. Most people are procrastinators at heart whether they want to admit it or not.
We have to move past that and stay focused on our goals. It may seem overwhelming, but when you come to a place where you truly believe in your goals, you will do whatever it takes.
Now that you have figured out the things that are holding you back, how do you plan to stay focused and accomplish your goals? Let me know in the comments.
I love the blog Kamika. I’m so proud of your accomplishments?
Thanks!