How to stick to your goals is step 3 of our goal planning and crushing series.
We first selected the right goal, then made a workable goal crushing action plan to implement before starting off with our work.
But as soon as the rubber met the road, excitement fizzled out. Now the problem is how to stick to your goals?
Don’t have time?
Note: I will use goals, resolutions, plans, dreams to mean the same in this post.
This post contains affiliate links.
Before I move on to my own tips on sticking to new year’s resolutions (or goals, whatever you make) I will briefly give you a summary of what Ruth told us about this so you can bring your dreams to life too.
It is mostly part of being intentional by planning in conjunction with participating in the Do It Scared Live Coaching Program for accountability. But if you can DIY it, then here’s how to.
First, I do highly highly highly recommend you to start using the Living Well Planner that changed my life.
It comes with a detailed video course on the very same time management and productivity system behind the live coaching.
It is based on Ruth Think Big Plan Small Time Management approach. The entire planner is designed to be used in this order.
- You strategically set 3 meaningful goals for the year
- Apply the C.R.U.S.H.I.T formula, which I recently read elsewhere is based on a scientific method (woot for knowing I’m doing the right thing!)
- Break them down each month into manageable size tasks, just like how they say to eat an elephant, one bite at a time
- And then design each week’s schedule using Brian Tracy’s ABCDE method of prioritization as follows:
- Grab a blank sheet and do a brain dump, then assign one of the following alphabets to each thing on this list as:
- A tasks: must do’s, only your 3 big goals for the year
- B tasks: should do’s, other pressing stuff like meals, laundry
- C tasks: would like to do’s
- D tasks: delegate
- E: Eliminate
- Now open up the weekly spread in your planner and first put nonnegotiables like appointments (doctor, etc), meetings (work, etc), and events (birthdays, etc) into the weekly spread of the planner,
- then time block for A tasks, then Bs and so on. Feel free to find a workaround for even skipping, delegating, compromising Bs or Cs wherever the need arises, but A tasks or the long term goals are must do’s.
- Grab a blank sheet and do a brain dump, then assign one of the following alphabets to each thing on this list as:
There are other details involved in this process too but the video course that comes with the planner explains that better.
I know one thing, this one promise Ruth took from us, of sticking to 52 weeks of commitment to this system has already turned my life 180 degrees. I only got the hang of this in the third year.
Thanks to accountability but even using the planner by yourself is great.
Most people don’t give a method enough time or attention and make the switch before it can start to benefit them. (When you stick to something long enough, then the magic happens!)
This is the best structure I could borrow for my time and my year so I can stick to my goals.
Now,
If for some reason, you don’t want to use my favorite sanity-saving Living Well Planner System, then here are other tips for how to stick to your goals.
First, Which Goals Are Actually Stick-able
- Ones that are S.M.A.R.T.
- S: specific, example: lose weight= I want to lose 20 pounds this year
- M: measurable: I’m running hese days, I’m definitely losing weight!= I lost 2 pounds this month!
- A: attainable: I want to do face exercises that make my face look oblong (when I have square jaws)?!
- R: relevant: but my baby is due in October! (Bahaha)
- T: time-bound: 20 bounds by year-end
- have an emotional connection
- They have a place on your calendar and clock
- you have built some sort of accountability around your goals by sharing them in public, with your friends, a supportive group or family
How To Stick To Your Goals –7 Smart Ways
1. Set Implementation Intention
Give a place (what day?) and a time (exactly when?) to your goal in the calendar. James Clear explained this point with scientific research and went on to say that:
…planning out when and where you will perform a specific behavior turns your environment into a trigger for action. The time and place triggers your behavior, not your level of motivation.
2. Use the gravity pull of habits in your favor
Once you make working on your goals into a habit, there will be fewer slips. You’ll instead feel more uncomfortable when not sticking to your goal.
Here are two good ways of forming habits:
- Put visual trackers in place
I love love love this year in pixels productivity tracker I made. We so often make overly positive guestimations about how well we are doing. A tracker shows you things as they are. And in effect keep you on track.
- Have a rhythm to your day
If you designate a time for your goals each day, most preferably in your most productive hours, over time they will become easier. You’ll just follow the rhythm and do your work and with less effort too.
I work on my blog every morning and over time it has become so much easier. Previously, I would try to fit in blog work in my day here and there but I couldn’t actually produce anything productive, now that my time is set, as soon as I open my laptop, words pour out of my fingers.
No writer’s block.
I kept reading about rhythms and routines but it took me 3 years to understand this.
3. Have a contingency plan
Ruth’s C.R.U.S.H.I.T method has a place under the letter H, handle obstacles where you make a contingency plan before the arrival of the potentially difficult situation that will stop you from sticking to your goal. It’ll be easier to handle problems when you’re already prepared.
4. Journal about your goal every day
Marie Forleo says this is one of the most important 3 sticky steps for staying on course (her other two go-to methods are having accountability, and setting a time and date).
She says she wrote her goal of being an NYT bestselling author every single day through the 18 months of writing one of my favorite books ‘Everything Is Figureoutable’.
Science, in fact, supports that writing down things increases their chances of happening by 40+%.
By 40+%? Yes, please!
You can grab inspiring daily journaling pages here.
5. Use the magic behind celebrating small victories
Ruth has this as part of her system but let me explain the magic behind it. When you break down your goals into smaller bites, celebrating the accomplishment of each of those small parts starts attracting more wins and triggers the winning chain reaction:
Do you reward yourself when you complete a project, get a new article published or sell a piece of work, or did you move on to the next thing, telling yourself it was no big deal? Celebrate! Every milestone should be celebrated because it anchors the experience in. Find any excuse to congratulate yourself for a job well done. Success breeds success
and the more “proof” you have that you are successful, the easier it will be to attract further good fortune… Celebrating an experience in that way gives you permission to be richly rewarded for
your efforts. It shows the Universe how to treat you and it puts you in that success mindset. Don’t let the moment pass you by unacknowledged.” ~Lucky B by Denise D Thomas
6. Set the lowest barrier of entry
Melyssa Griffin talks about the lowest barriers of entry for building habits. They are the smallest chunk you can break your goal into.
But you can also use these smallest chunks of your task to continue going when you feel like giving up.
For example, if you simply don’t feel like going for a jog today, just pick the lowest barrier entry, say 5 minutes of walk. Anyone can do anything for five minutes!
Once you start, you might as well think Oh well, I’m already out now, lemme finish my goal for the day.
7. Bring out your alter ego
Todd Herman, a high-performance world-renowned coach says superman had it right.
Under normal routine, he was normal too, but when he needed to do special stuff, he brought out the superman hidden in himself. Todd teaches this Alter Ego Effect to high achievement athletes.
Just think, what would superman [or your most inspiring, fav person] do at the moment of slip. Bring your inner superman out and do that!
It’s not about becoming someone else, it’s just bringing out the super inner self you already had inside you readymade to kick-@$$.
I do that to my son all the time, I tell him to use Super Musa Power and all of a sudden he can brush or comb or zip the jacket by himself.
Now,
What If You Don’t Have Much Time Left?
If you have already wasted a lot of your time, you can switch to the 12 week year method. Even if you don’t like it, just use the strategy for as long as you need to get your work done.
Just a suggestion =)
Here’s what you do in a 12 week year:
How To Stick To Your Goals If You Think You Have ADHD?
Many successful people have it too.
Einstein, Sir Richard Branson, the Ikea founder, Justin Timberlake, to name a few.
None of them reached where they are by fits and starts. They stuck to their goal. So can you.
How To Stick To Your Goals Past January
Sticking to your new year resolutions or goals becomes easy when you have a system to follow, OR, methods to workaround every potential slip. You can either use Ruth’s Living Well Planner based on the ready-made Think Big Plan Small Goal Crushing system or apply methods like habit building, scheduling and time blocking on the calendar, journaling daily, having a contingency plan, accountability, etc to stay on track. Let me know in the comments how you stick to your goals.
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