It doesn’t have to be New Years to make goals.
I tend to use times of big change to make goals for the next step in my life. These goals are varied depending on the time and season I am in. As a military spouse, change is inevitable, especially with deployments, duty and moving regularly. So I have had a LOT of goals in my life. Some of my past, and current, goals have included areas such as exercise, education, career, spiritual growth and learning new skills. But just because I made a goal doesn’t mean I have always completed that goal.
Motivation is hard to come by sometimes. I sure hope I am not the only one who feels this way? As a mom, sometimes I feel like my goals need to be put on the back burner for those around me. Sometimes I feel like I do not have the time for myself and so I make excuses not to pursue the goal. It’s hard to take that first step and it sometimes can require a little structure and push in the right direction.
I had this exact difficulty recently. Let me tell ya about it…
I had been hearing about a Wake Up Challenge from Monica Packer of About Progress. By the way, go make sure to check out her podcast – super inspiring! You will NOT be disappointed!
Aaaanyway… She made a goal for herself that she would wake up early, before her kids, each day and get specific things accomplished. She talks about it often and is honest in her steps towards it and has given a lot of tips. I was super excited about it at first, set my alarm and after a few days, I gave up. Its not that its HARD, or something that was taking me from something else, and for a while I couldn’t put my finger on what was keeping me from the goal. After all, it sounded like a great goal!
But eventually I figured out what the problems were:
Once I was able to sit down and take some time to think about it, my needs were pretty simple.
- I need to figure out my WHY
- I needed to know what motivated me to continues and make a way to keep things moving forward.
So I decided to do something about it and come up the solution for these two things.
First, and most importantly: My WHY.
This was actually the hardest one to begin with, but after a bit, it became clear. The most important thing in my life is my relationship with my family. I notice that on the days that I am able to get up early, workout, read scriptures and prepare for the day before thy get up are the days when I am more present and focused on THEM. I do NOT like the feeling of being behind in my life.
Once I figured out my why, I needed to move onto motivation. Part of my personality, and something that I am sure drives people around me crazy at times, is that I love lists. Especially to-do lists. I love seeing progress made and being able to visually note things getting accomplished and goals being met. If I do not see progress, my motivation will start to weaken and it gets harder to continue in that direction. After all, I do not like to waste my time.
Now what??
So now that I have both those two problems solved, it was time to put it to work. So I created my Goal Setting Sheet and Habit Tracker! This is an Add-On to my Home and Family Binder. If you don’t know what I am talking about, make sure to check out my post about my Home and Family Binder and snag your free copy of it. But I digress….
So let me tell you about my Goal Setting and Habit Tracker sheets. They are simple, effective tools which will help you not only be able to track your progress, but to help you find your WHY and recognize obstacles that could get in the way of that.
Best of all, its FREE to you! It’s been SUCH a great thing in my life, that I want to make sure everyone has the chance to get their hands on it.
You ready??
Fill out the form below to get the Goal Setting and Habit Tracker Sheets directly to your email! I can’t wait to hear the goals you have set!
