Did you accomplish any of your goals yet this year? Are you still on your way positively towards accomplishing the longer term ones? Have a few goals that are sitting there with a glass of wine and their feet up on the footstool doing a whole lot of nothing? Do you have a few goals you look back on and say…”Why did I want to do this?” Well in our last installment of the Goal Setting Series, I’m going to tell you how to right the ship and not give up on your year. It’s always good to revisit your goals regularly…but at least twice a year to ensure you’re still going forward.
If you need to catch up with the series you can here: Why Goal Set? Be SMART. When It Gets Tough… Honor Small Wins. Watch Your Language.
There’s still a little time left to get your free Goal Setting Workbook sponsored by Decidedly Equestrian and StreamhorseTV.
There are a million reasons why goals don’t get met, and sometimes it has to do with your set up. However if you have been reading along and did the worksheet early that’s probably not the problem. Life is a huge problem. Anything can throw you off: illness, work stress increases, family stuff, moving, getting a new pet, or in the case of this year…simply just Covid slowly disappearing and things getting thrown on your plate you haven’t dealt with in over a year. You’re not a failure if you didn’t get where you wanted to be by now…you’re still in process. It’s totally okay. So what can you do now? Step back and take a moment to analyze your goals and accomplishments for the year, ask yourself questions, answer honestly, and re-plan (or throw the goals out). I’m going to go through one of my currently flailing goals below and reroute myself.
I mean…if I’m being completely honest I am completely off track on a number of my goals. My riding goals are 100% on track, despite many wrenches in the cogs this year. You can see where my priorities are! Some of my work goals are complete…some in process…some I have actually already decided are not right for me right now (or at all). My fitness/weight loss goals for the year I stuck with for a couple of months…then life got tricky and I stopped most of my forward momentum. I had a plan to be at a certain weight and fitness by June 1 and I didn’t’ get there. What happened? Should I try again?
Questions to myself…
Am I happy with the current state of things? No, but happier than in January.
Is this still a valid goal for me? Yes.
Will it help me feel better physically and emotionally to proceed with them? Yes.
Will I ride better (which is usually my #1 goal in life)? Yes.
Why did I fail these goals? 1. I’m lazy. 2. It’s a LOT of mental work to count calories and track food and I just got tired of the extra time and effort. 3. I often find “more urgent” things to do than work out. 4. Planning work outs and making time for them honestly stress me out.
Is there actually anything more urgent than taking care of myself? Occasionally, but mostly no.
Did I try to do too much too fast? Yes I think so. Food tracking is work. It’s hard for me to do it and maintain it mentally and emotionally…and adding in multiple types of work outs every week on top of that was a lot. I put too much pressure on getting all of it done at once.
So from my questions…I know this should still be a goal…but I should rewrite it. So instead of working on tracking food and weight training and cardio and yoga…I’m going to focus on one of these for the next month…and then see how I feel. Now to just decide which one!
Take one of your floundering goals and ask yourself a series of questions relevant to that goal and your current lack of accomplishment. Ask the questions as if you were a coach looking into your current situation. If the answers indicate you still want to proceed towards this goal…rewrite the goal to make it more accomplish-able for you. Don’t necessarily give yourself more time (as that makes procrastination more easy to do), but do make sure that the goal is actually accomplish-able in reality. If the plan is too intense or too mentally or physically taxing…chances are you’ll fail again (and neither you or I want that)!
Remember the lessons from the other articles as well and be kind to yourself. That’s of upmost importance.
Also, remember I’m always here if you want to talk over any goals, have questions or just need a cheerleader. I’d love to hear from you.
Signing off on the Goal Setting series with StreamhorseTV! Thank you for reading along and I hope that I was able to bring some helpful tips to you and that next time you read one of my articles, you will have accomplished something you always dreamed of! It’s been a pleasure!
