Goal Setting – Progress NOT Perfection

I have never been much of a goal setter. No matter how hard I try, I tend to want to set WAY TOO many and think that everything has to be perfect from the start! Guess what?!?!? I fail EVERY. SINGLE. TIME! My mind is always on the perfect end result and never focused on HOW to actually accomplish them. This causes me to get crazy stressed and give up because I can’t do it perfectly right away!

I have also never put a time frame on my goals. I just knew they were things I wanted to make happen perfectly RIGHT NOW! Nevermind the fact that I was never able to stick with it long enough to sit down and review my progress and grow in the process. I decided all of that was going to change this year…

So, last month I sat down and made some goals. I wrote them out, by hand, on a piece of paper – GASP! – which helps them feel more “real” for some reason. (I am a lover of technology, but there is just something about pen and paper that I will never be able to give up!!) I shared them on Leo & Lucy’s Facebook Page….here’s the rundown of how things went this month:

✔ Publish Blog – DONE! – I may have cheated a little bit with this one 😉 I had actually published it before I even sat down to write out my goals. BUT, being able to check it off right away helped motivate me to keep moving forward!
✔ Make time twice a week to write – hmmm, this one seemed like a totally obtainable goal…I was WRONG! Saving my sanity and getting my sh*t together got in the way took priority. (More to come on that topic soon!)
✔ Get January book work done – NOPE! This one didn’t even cross my mind after I wrote it down 🙄

All in all, I feel like I did way better with my goals this go ’round than I ever have before. Heck, we are at the start of another month and I am still sticking with it – that my friend is PROGRESS!! So, here’s what I took away from my first month of goal setting:

Don’t set too many – I originally set more than those three because I didn’t feel like I was covering everything I really wanted to accomplish. BIG mistake! I bit off way more than I could chew and started to get discouraged. So, now I have a “master list” of goals and when I think of something I want to work on, I add it to the list. That way, when I sit down to set my goals for the month, I have a starting point and can pick and choose what is important right now, what can be broken down into smaller goals, and what can wait until a later time. It is interesting to see how things start to build on each other when you look at it as one continuous work in progress list instead of a “I NEED to get everything done RIGHT NOW” list.

Have a plan – Making time to write twice a week sounded totally doable but I got a huge reality check. I learned that just because I can write by the seat of my pants, doesn’t mean anyone wants to read it or could understand it! I need to be able to sit down and focus on the task at hand without trying to feed the baby, get some milk, change a diaper, switch the laundry, fix lunch, run the dishwasher….you get the point! So, how do I make that happen? There needs to be a plan! I need to have a plan for the boys, my house needs to be picked up (or I need to leave it) and my the rest of my normal to do list needs to be checked off. I am already excitedly looking at my calendar and trying to figure out how to make these things happen for this month!

Keep them in front of you – Last month, after I wrote my goals, they got stored away in a notebook, not to be looked at again until I sat down at the end of the month to check my progress. How do you know what you are working towards if it is hidden in a notebook?!? How do you make them a priority if you can’t even remember what they are?!? That’s right – you don’t and you can’t! So…this month, they are getting posted in a prominent place, probably on the wall of my kitchen, so I can see them every day and be reminded of what I am working towards and why!

Progress NOT perfection is key! – It is ok to not accomplish your goals. Sometimes you have to revamp them, make them more obtainable or look at the bigger picture to see that you are making progress. If you aren’t making progress, figure out why! For instance, I was wanting to do WAY TOO much all at one time. No matter how hard I try, I am not super woman and NO ONE can accomplish everything all at once!

Accountability feeds progress – By sharing my goals with you, I don’t feel like I can just shove them off until next month or next year…I have put it out into the universe that I am expecting this of myself and if I don’t at least attempt to conquer them, I will have failed not only myself, but all of you too. (Nothing like a little guilt trip to motivate me 🙂)

So, here’s to another round of learning, accomplishing and self growth!

Be sure to check out Leo & Lucy on Facebook to see my goals for March and share your goals with me!! We can grow in this process together!