The importance of goal setting and setting yourself up for success!
Bill Gates has a powerful saying ‘Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years’. I remind myself of this regularly and this shows the importance and power of implementing daily habits to achieve your goals.
Goal setting, for myself personally, has been something I have done since a young age. Whilst completing my Certificate IV in Property Services back in 2012 my Tafe teacher highlighted just how important it is to write your goals down. This piece of advice has helped me throughout the years to strive towards my goals, be reminded of them each day, and ensure I achieve them, and for that I am extremely grateful. I always ensure I implement the SMART goal model when creating my goals and then I combine this with breaking it down into daily habits. This allows you to focus on the process, not the outcome. If you can implement the process successfully each day, before you know it, the overall outcome of achieving that goal will become a reality.
Today I want to discuss some ideas that you can implement in your lives to increase your chances of achieving your goals and sticking to them! I want to help make your goals become your achievements!
SMART Goals
When we create a goal we want to ensure it is a ‘smart’ goal, which is key to ensure success with your goals. We need to ensure the goal is specific, what exactly is it that you are wanting to achieve? We need to ensure it is measurable, is this an amount or a certain result? We need to ensure this is a goal you can realistically achieve. If this isn’t achievable you are going to become overwhelmed and disappointed if you fall short of your goal. We need to ensure this goal is relevant, is it getting me towards my overall objective? Or does this goal align with my values? Last, but not least, it needs to be timely, when do you want to achieve this goal by? If you don’t have a date that you wish to achieve this by, it won’t become a priority and you’ll find time has gone by and the goal has still not been achieved.
S-Specific
M-Measurable
A-Achievable
R-Relevant
T-Timely
An example of a SMART goal is we want to save $15,000 from the 1/1/2022 to the 31/12/2022. We have been specific with what the goal is – saving $15,000. We can measure this goal at the end of the year or can even measure this throughout the year to identify if we are on target. The goal is achievable, as it means that we only need to focus on saving $288 a week or $42 a day. The goal is relevant as this is ensuring we save towards our house deposit so we can leverage into purchasing an asset. This is timely as it will be achieved within the coming year, knowing when this should be reached allows us to plan for the next goal or step.
Write your goals down
At the end of each year you should allow yourself the opportunity to reflect on your goals and recognise the achievements and accomplishments for the current year. This also allows you to plan your goals for the year ahead. This may mean that some goals weren’t achieved, and they are carried on from the year before, or you may set yourself new goals building off the achievements from the year before. Remember if you don’t achieve all your goals this is okay, you can’t achieve every single goal every single year. I had purchasing an investment property as a goal for three years in a row before it became a reality, I had a friend even call me out saying this had been a goal for three years as if it was a bad thing. Looking at this every day kept me motivated to keep moving towards that goal until it was achieved.
I have a white board and record my goals on a column on the left and have a column on the right for each time that goal is converted into an accomplishment. Once the goal is achieved, I ticked the goal off and record it as an achievement in the right-hand side column. I have this somewhere where I can see it every single day. If you are having a rough day or you’re unmotivated or energy level is low, seeing this might just give you that little boost you need to keep on working towards those goals. This might sound silly but every small habit to increase your chances of success is important.
Be consistent and break your goals down to daily habits
When it comes to setting big goals, they can sometimes seem daunting and you may wonder, how am I going to achieve this goal? However, once you can break this goal down into a daily habit it is far easier to comprehend, implement and grasp. Therefore, it is important to ensure you understand the daily habits you need to implement to achieve your bigger overall goals. Remember with any big goal you must be consistent and focus on your daily habits, this is what is going to help you achieve these goals and set you up for success.
Let’s use the same example as before, our goal being to save $15,000 for the year. Now we know that $15,000 saved in one year is $288 per week or $42 a day. $42 a day doesn’t seem anywhere near as daunting as $15,000 a year. Now to ensure that we hit that target of $288 per week, we set up an automatic transfer to our savings account the day after we get paid each week or $576 per fortnight if we are paid fortnightly. We also ensure our savings account cannot be touched unless we go into the branch, you can request this access at your financial institution. This is known as view only access, meaning you can view the balance however not access funds. If your financial institution does not allow this, you may hold the savings account with a financial institution that does. Now that we have our savings structure and transfer set up, we can focus daily on ensuring that we stick to our daily budget, so we don’t need to access the funds in our savings account. This may mean only eating out once per week, or only buying a coffee once per week.
Never underestimate the power of your daily habits! They will be the key to your goals becoming achievements!
Accountability
When you set goals that you want to achieve you must be accountable. Accountable for your actions, your daily habits and your focus and energy. Throughout the process there will be times where your motivation or energy is low, and you may not be achieving your goals in line with where you wanted them to be. This is where it is important to reflect on how you have been performing. This will allow you to check in with yourself and be accountable if you have let yourself slip a little. Acknowledge this is the case, don’t make excuses as to why and take responsibility. Then make sure you reset and refocus so you can continue on with achieving your goals.
This might mean that you sit down once a week, fortnight or month and reflect on that period. Identify what you have been doing well and identify areas that you may not be happy with and create some solutions to how you are going to do this better moving forward to ensure that you stay on track and achieve your goals. Remember, no one else wants to see you achieve your goals more than you do, which means you must take accountability and responsibility!
I hope the information you have read through today has provided you with some insight and value into helping you move towards achieving your goals and turning them into accomplishments.
If you have any questions or you want to share some of your big goals and achievements, please reach out to info@tayloredpropertywealth.com.au.
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