Go Get Your Goals! New Year's Goal Setting Parts 4-6 Staying Focused, and More

The Goal Getter Challenge Part Four - Staying Focused

I want to share different ways to stay focused and keep your mind on your goals.  

I don't like having things to do every day. So if I said to myself, 'Gael, you're going to write down your top 10 goals every day for the next 30 days or the next 100 days or forever,' I would start to feel some resistance.  

Having a variety of ways to focus on my goals gives me options, and I don’t have a long list of ‘musts’ or ‘shoulds.’ Some days I write them down in my journal, but not from the energy of 'I have to do this every day or I won't reach my goals' because that is a scarcity type of energy.  

Freedom is one of my highest values. I like to feel free and am CHOOSING to do my activities each day. I am simultaneously pretty regimented and do many of the same things day after day because it works. I am not being told to do it, even by myself!

Let's explore ways to lock in, focus on your goals, and have variety.  

You can write down your top 10 daily or whichever ones pop into your mind daily.  Write them from an excited - can’t wait for these to happen!  We're not just going to copy our goals day after day. We're going to do it with energy, passion, and excitement.  

1. Visualize them as done.  If you're not in a place where you can write, maybe, like when I'm traveling, I can close my eyes and go over my goals in my mind and visualize them as done and completed and step into that feeling of how amazing that will be when those goals are my reality.  

2. Use positive affirmations and declarations: Say out loud, 'I now have x,y, and z.  I am now a certified coach, and I have 20 clients.'  Whatever is on your list, declare it out loud! 

Pro-tip affirmations work when YOU believe them. So, we don't want to lie to ourselves. Choose to affirm beliefs that feel real to you. I call these stair-step beliefs. If you've been telling yourself you aren't very good with money, "I am a millionaire!" might be too big of a leap, but "I am learning and becoming better at managing money every day." You can probably believe that and then back it up with your actions, watch Remit Sethi on YouTube and ask Chat GPT to create a plan to help you pay off your debts and save more. 

The little things are the big things, after all!

My favorite places to say spoken affirmations and declarations are the shower, the car, and walking on my treadmill. You should do this when you have some time, you are alone, and people won't hear you and comment on what you are doing and saying.  

3. Create a dream board. Check out my vision board workshop if you need some ideas and inspiration for your dream or vision board.

You can review your goals book for the year. I do that every Monday in my planner. I take my 100 goals and things to do for the year, look through them, and use them to create my weekly action plan.  

Create Pinterest boards for your different goals; it's fun to do. For example, if you have a vacation to Italy on your list, create a vacation board with links to all the places you want to see, yummy foods, and relaxing accommodations. You can create a beach house board if you have a beach house on your list. Even if you have savings goals, there are tons of articles on Pinterest about saving money and reaching those goals.

Whatever your goals are, you can make a board about them! When I have some downtime, like waiting in line or waiting for a movie to start, or when my husband and son are watching a movie I'm not interested in but still want to hang out in their room, I go through my boards, read the articles, or look at the pictures. I do that instead of doing something that wastes my time, like reading social media comments.  

4. Record yourself. There are many free recording apps. You may already have one built into your phone, or you can go to the app store and search for a voice recorder. Speak your declarations and affirmations out loud and record them. Then, you can play the recording while driving, doing the dishes, or anytime you want. 

Recording yourself can also be an alternative to a written journal when you don’t have time to write or haven’t developed a journaling habit. 

5. Use physical anchors. This is something that represents one of your big goals or dreams that you can have with you. It could be a piece of jewelry, a framed picture or something symbolic that you can keep on your desk or your bedside table, anywhere you will see it often. Use anything anywhere as long as it represents you reaching your goals.  I have a ring that I bought at the beach. It's just a little silver ring, but ocean waves are etched into it. This ring reminds me every time I look at it that my beach house is in the works; it's on the way. 

Review your goals and visualize them as you are drifting off to sleep.  This can be similar to counting sheep.  It's just something to do as you're drifting off to sleep. I try to do that or think of things that I am grateful for. Those two things help me fall asleep quickly and easily instead of letting the day's anxiety keep me up!

6. Finally, use a habit tracker to track whether or not you are making time daily to focus on your goals. I try to do two or three of these exercises each day. It's not hard to write down my goals when I journal, visualize them as I sleep, work on my Pinterest boards or vision boards, and add affirmations or declarations.  

It's helpful to have choices and options to help you stay focused on your goals, and it doesn't become so routine. It no longer has energy and meaning behind it! 

Part 5 It's ok to set IMPOSSIBLE goals!

Let’s talk about how realistic your goals should be and start with a few quotes:  

Michelangelo said, "The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it."

Terri Savelle Foy said, "Don't shrink your dream. Enlarge your faith!"

When we talk about goals, there are dozens of ways to set them.  There are smart goals, yearly goals, and 5 and 10-year goals.  There are crazy-dream goals, and they are all available.  They are all available to set and go after.  

It's all about feeling what's in alignment for you.  I have what I would consider some big, audacious goals.  Ones that I don't tell many people about because I don't want to hear them say, 'That's impossible! That will never happen! How are you going to do that?'  I don't even want to hear myself saying those things, and often I do that sort of self-talk!  

Part of why I do challenges and this daily mindset work is not to let distracting thoughts get me off my path.  It's easy if you've set a big goal and it looks like it's not working out; to pull back and say ‘I didn't want that to begin with, that was too much, I'm going to adjust my goal’.  Nothing is wrong with that, but is that what you really want to do?  Is it in alignment for you?  It can be a scarcity mindset when we start pulling back.  

I can only share with you what I do for myself. I set several goals that I consider very practical and reachable. They fit into the smart goal format. Simultaneously, I have what I would consider some pretty crazy, audacious goals that I'm just keeping the faith about. I truly believe in my heart that there are forces at work that cannot be seen or understood, and I have faith.  

My husband has seen me do this multiple times. For example, I quit my day job to go all in on online business, encouraging him to start a business at a terrible time economically in this country.  I fully backed him in 2009 when we had bills we couldn't pay.  I said, 'Of course, you should start a business.'  The only thing that made logical sense to me was to go all in on ourselves.  

 I have a great deal of faith, and I explained to him that I can do that because my faith is not in myself or my abilities. I know that I am fully and completely taken care of by a higher power, and that's where my faith comes from.   

We each need to figure it out for ourselves, but I would encourage you to set some big, audacious goals, not to pull back, and to keep taking action every day in that direction.  

One thing I do for my big, audacious goals is to think, " This or something better.” I don't want to limit my opportunities or the time it takes to happen. Sometimes, it takes a little longer, and sometimes, things can happen quickly! I may say it's a goal for this year, but if that goal is reached in 18 months or 2 years, I don't think I would be any less happy about it.  

Setting goals should involve your heart, soul, and brain—your practical side—working together. So, I suggest some of each, realistic and completely unrealistic. I encourage you to think about this, journal, meditate, and find the best answer.

Part Six Goal Getter Energy

What is the "energy" of being a goal-getter?

It’s simply shifting your energy from ‘I wrote down some goals, I set some goals, or I have a goal’ to ‘I AM going after my goals, I AM a goal getter’.  It is an identity shift.  It's not a difficult one but I think it's important to check in with yourself about it.  

Am I in the energy of being a goal-getter, or am I currently in the energy of someone with a list of goals sitting in a notebook somewhere?

 They are two different energies.  

One is active, the other is passive; one is expansive, and the other is contractive because you know that list of goals is sitting there and you're not taking action on it, that’s likely lowering your energy a bit.

Let's look at a couple of examples of this.  

You can buy a juicer that can sit in your kitchen cabinet.   You can own that juicer or use it.  If you use it every morning and you're a person who makes fresh, delicious, healthy juices and drinks them, you are a person who is juicing.  So you can own a juicer.  That's fine.  That's one step.  But to be juicing is a different energy level.  

You can own a yoga mat, but practicing yoga and being a person who practices is a completely different energy level.  If you've done my 10-minute yoga challenge, you'll know that was one I put up on a pedestal for a long time, and I finally shifted into the energy of being someone with a yoga practice!

You can set goals, or you can be a goal-getter. 

One thing that helps shift that energy is breaking your goals into action steps.  

Every goal we set, especially if it is a one-year or longer goal, will have many action steps.  Creating 5-10-minute action steps for your various goals will help you to build momentum and shift your energy. You don't have to work on every daily goal to have goal-getter energy.  You'll probably be working on some goals some days and some goals other days, but as long as you are actively working on goals, you are going to be in the energy.  

Reviewing my goals is a daily task, so I can figure out how I am doing with them and figure out some 5-10 minutes - or, depending on my schedule - 30-60 minutes of action steps for those goals.  I find 5-10 minute action steps very doable.  Over weeks and months, you will make so much progress!

Let's use my goal of being on 100 podcasts as an example.

That's a pretty big goal!  As with many goals, as I get into them, I realize there are steps I hadn't thought of; they take quite a bit more time than I thought.  My daily steps are sending out pitches; I subscribe to a service to make that easier.  And then reply to any responses to my pitches.  Once someone says ‘yes, I want you to be on my podcast’, that's great.  Then I need to book the time and send them everything they want from me as the host.  That is usually a list of things.  So sending a host everything they need is a 10-15 minute action task.  Of course, I need to show up on time and prepared for the interview. That's another thing I hadn't considered when setting this goal.  There will be preparation!  Some interviews require more than others, but I like to look at my messages from the host, see what topics we have talked about, and make some notes.  That might be 10 minutes or longer before I'm even on the podcast.  After that, there will be follow-ups and sharing of the episodes once they are published.  

I know what's involved in reaching this goal - and it's a lot. If I do a few of these things daily, like logging in and sending five messages, I took some action.  I'm in goal-getter energy!

Your available time and energy levels will vary daily, but the longer you go without taking action, the harder it will be to shift back into goal-getter energy. Keep going day after day to maintain your momentum.

Take a look through your goals and start creating your smaller action steps.  Even if you don’t know ALL of the steps, you can start with something, and that usually leads to figuring out what you don’t know, and figuring that out is another step!

It's great to have a lot of time to work on a goal, and we may occasionally have that, but for me, it's the exception rather than the rule. Knowing that small steps lead to big goals being reached is invaluable and something we need to keep at the forefront of our minds.

I'll give you one more example.  In 2021, my big goal was to write 12 books in 12 months.  And I didn't.  I wrote six books in 12 months.  However, I did work on them nearly every day in some way.  Because, just like my podcasting goal, there were more steps than I realized.  

I thought writing the book was the hardest part.  Writing a book is the easy part!  I needed to hire an editor, make money to pay that editor, hire book cover designers, get the books formatted, and write a book description.  There are so many steps!  But if I was taking action in any one of those areas each day I was moving forward on my goal to get my books published. I know for sure if I hadn't set that big goal to write twelve books I wouldn't have gotten to six.  I probably would have done two or three at most.  

And that’s why I'm a fan of really big goals.

Get out there and create your action steps and step into goal getter energy!