Tips for setting realistic, yet challenging goals
Here are some tips for setting realistic, yet challenging goals, and actually following them. When you want to set good goals for yourself, they need to be attainable. The reason is that if a goal is not feasible, then you will be discouraged when you can not reach that goal.
We often times set great goals, feel motivated for a time and then when the goal is more difficult than we had expected, we end up giving up. This will not work in the long run for being a successful goal oriented person. It is important to be able to reach the goals you make on a regular basis, in order to stay motivated.
The best way to do this is to set realistic goals. The goals can be short or long term. The goals can be important for your financial life, physical life, family life, or work life. The key to setting your goals is making sure that they can be obtained.
Therefore, here are some tips that can help you to set realistic goals. Then it will be easier to follow them.
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Tip #1
Think about your goals. Are they such that they can be reached within a specific amount of time? Therefore a goal that would be a good goal could be, lose 20 pounds within 3 months. Another good goal could be save up $500 in 2 months.
Being able to set a reachable time limit will help you to follow and reach your goals. The time limit can be for shorter periods of times, or longer periods of time. The reason this will work is because you will set up smaller goals, which will lead to the larger goal. The smaller goals can be reached in a smaller amount of time.
Tip #2
Once you know what your main goal is and how much time it will take you to get to that point, and also that the goal is attainable. Then you can split that main goal up into smaller, faster and easier to reach goals.
So the bigger goal can be lose 100 pounds in 1 year. This is a great deal of weight to lose. It is healthy to lose about 10 pounds per month with diet and exercise. So it is a feasible goal. Though, it is one that will take time. So in order to not lose your motivation and actually be able to follow this goal, you will need to split this large goal up into smaller goals.
This could be the 10 pounds per month. Which will equal the total of 100 pounds give or take the holidays for the year.
Tip #3
Leave room for setbacks. As you see in the example above, you will want to allow for some months that you may not lose as much weight. So, with this in mind, you can realize that there is not much room for setbacks, but there is some.
Tip #4
The most important thing about setting realistic and challenging goals, and also being able to follow them, is being motivated. That is where the smaller goals comes in. You will feel more motivated, if you are reaching the smaller goals more often.
Also, rewarding yourself for these goals being reached will make it easier to stay motivated to reach the overall larger goal.
