In an effort to streamline your goals, ensure you stick with them, and help you start making a plan to achieve them, try this exercise. On a separate sheet of paper, complete write out the answers to these questions for multiple areas of your life.

Write out at the top My overall goal in this area is:
Example A: (Health) To lose 25 pounds.
Example B: (Work) To bring in $5,000 more this year.

What is the deepest reason behind this goal?
Example A: I want to be able to keep up with my active kids and better serve as a parent.
Example B: I want to have more padding so we are not so stressed at the end of each month. It is weighing on our whole family.

How Can I increase this goal so that it has not just a small an impact on my life but a GIANT impact? How can I make this goal inspiring enough to keep me motivated when I am tempted to give up?

Try to add a zero, cut a timeline in half, double or triple a goal. Remember failing at this bigger goal is not a big deal – especially if you fail at the more aggressive goal but still end up better off than your initial goal.

Example A: To lose 75 pounds OR To lose 25 pounds by 6/1.
Example B: To bring in $1000 more per month, enough to cover y and z and really free us up financially.

List every method you can think of to start achieving this goal.

Example A: Drink the full 8 glasses of water each day, sign up for gym membership, give up carbs, give up sugar, go paleo, go vegetarian, do a youtube workout video every single day, etc

Now ask yourself, what are the EASIEST methods I can actually keep up with in my life, given my current school, social, family and work obligations? What methods best fit my personality? What methods am I LEAST likely to quit?

Example A: I can realistically keep up with a gym because I will have paid for the classes OR I can realistically keep up with youtube videos because I don’t have time to do multiple hour-long gym group classes a week.

Remember ACTION is one of the biggest keys to success. What are some pitfalls that I might use because they FEEL like they’re helping me achieve my goals, but in actuality they aren’t? Be honest!

Example A: Buying diet books, joining facebook groups, perusing Pinterest for recipes, none of which are as effective as getting up and working out right then, or chugging water, etc.

Example B: I could get caught up learning all about how to grow my side hustle of handmade jewelry, feeling like I’m learning, instead of actually making more products to sell, taking photos of those products, listing them on my website, etc.

How will you keep yourself from falling into those pitfalls? Remember to account for your personality – again, be honest with yourself

Example A: I will choose one accountability partner who is hard core (not a bestie who will go soft on me) and I will limit Pinterest time.

Example B: I will only let myself read or watch or listen to one business building piece of content, and only until after I finish and post two new pieces.

After you have completed all the areas of your life you want to address, ask yourself, what is my biggest priority in life? Do these goals match that priority?

For example, your true priority might be your children – have you chosen the methods that are going to help you maintain quality time with your kids? Or maybe your sobriety is your priority, is a financial goal of getting a second job to have money to pay off your car going to be too much stress for you to stay centered? Etc.

After you have completed most of your goals, ask yourself, Is there anything big in my life that will cause me to feel constantly feel behind and frustrated in life, no matter how much progress you make on these goal?

Example: These goals won’t matter unless I finally reconcile with my Mom – which is one of the reasons I stress eat. OR These goals won’t matter if I don’t kick my smoking habit – it’s what I’m really ashamed of and mad at myself about, and it will put a damper on everything else if I don’t fix it.

Once you have thought all these things through, it’s time to get more detailed with your methods – what actions will you take daily? What actions will you take weekly? Monthly?

What milestones can you set in place monthly or quarterly to make sure you’re on track? For example, starting with your goal weight and working backwards, you may decide to weigh yourself weekly and aim to hit certain dress sizes by specific months, etc.

Now look at all you’d have to achieve in one week to stay on track with all of those targets (and still keep up with work and have a life, etc?)

Is it way too much? Is it enough to be pushing yourself a bit? Remember you are capable of more than you think in a year, but we tend to overestimate what we can do in a month or a week. Pare some things down and boost others, according to your priorities.

Lastly, write out and plot all of your methods and milestones somewhere, ideally in multiple places.

Set calendar alerts, post reminders on your mirror, set alarms on your phone, plot milestones in your planner, whatever and wherever you have to nudge yourself to stick with the methods and start to see results.

Finally, remember to push hard at the beginning – we tend to bail if we don’t see progress – we are impatient! Then, as you go, remember to celebrate small wins along the way. Small wins lead to big wins, which lead to achieving your goals and changing your life!