Top seven tips to help you achieve the goals on your 2018 vision board
If you read my January article, it was all about creating a vision board to achieve your goals. I hope you enjoyed making one for your 2018 goals. Creating a vision board might be the easy part, but success lies in action. Most of you slack off after January because you get into routine and often work takes a priority over other goals. Isn’t that true?
Here are my top 7 tips to keep you motivated on a longer timeframe.
Tip #1: Partner with a friend
For goals like exercising, make sure you have a like-minded accountability partner. If you live close to each other, then you can exercise together—say a run or walk in the park. This gives you an added bonus of exercising and getting one-on-one time with your friend to catch up with the latest news.
Tip #2: Tie it back to your why
When you write down your goals, it is important to write your ‘WHY’ against each of them. At times when you slack, you can go and refer to your ‘WHY’. For example, if your reason to save $5,000 is to take a trip to your favourite destination, then every week when you are tempted to spend money on clothing or accessories, remind yourself of your ‘why’. Giving up short term pleasure for longer term goals is an art to learn!
Tip #3: Make weekly checkpoints to track your progress
Quite often with a job, there are deadlines to meet. These can be weekly targets or monthly or even annual targets. When you reach them, your manager or you recognise that you have completed tasks for the week. Similarly, with your goals, set weekly targets and make them your priority to achieve them. If it is exercise and you know you never get to it in the evening (after work), then make it the first thing you will do in the morning, before you go to work.
Tip #4: Get help when you need it
Sometimes, the reason why you are not motivated is not because you don’t want to do it, but because you don’t know how to do it. Never hesitate to ask for help from a mentor or someone who is a pro.
Tip #5: Read and listen to positive information
Listening to positive talks every day is one of my favourite things to do. Even a 10-minute talk by one of your favourite people (could be Oprah, Marie Forleo or anybody you admire) can increase the positivity and motivation levels for you to achieve your goals.
Tip #6: Take control over what you can and don’t worry about the rest
I’ve seen some people obsessing over their goals. Life is ever changing, so there can be times when you don’t have control over certain things. Don’t feel like a failure at times like this. Learn what worked and move on from there. It is seriously not worth stressing over what you cannot control.
Tip #7: Reward yourself for every goal you achieve
The biggest mistake with some personalities (I’m guilty of this too) is to just focus on completing one goal after another without stopping and celebrating victory. What this does to your brain is to decrease your motivation. After a while you think ‘so what’? So, remember to stop and treat yourself in any small way (could be getting a bunch of flowers) every time you achieve your goal.
Sometimes, depending on the goal, through the year, you may find that you no longer want to achieve it (not because of laziness, because priorities change). If so, that is ok too. Life is not static and there can be so many twists and turns. So, go with the flow, but work towards those important goals like family time, ME time, finance, and your hobbies.
I would love to hear from you how you keep yourself motivated.
The writer is an entrepreneur, a mother and the Director of Smart Money Solutions, a mortgage broking firm helping female professionals with their home loans. She is also the author of “Smart Women, Smart Home loans”, a blogger, a speaker; above all one woman wanting to empower other women to live a happy, free life. You can get in touch with questions or suggestions on obu.ramaraj@smartmoneysolutions.com.au; Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/oburamaraj/; Website: www.oburamaraj.com
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