You hear and read a lot about making your goals challenging.
That is all well and good, and I of course recommend that you do stretch yourself and try to do something a little better, a little more often (or a little less, depending on the goal :-), but who decides just how tough your goal needs to be? You.
You know yourself.
If you need a tough goal to stay motivated, then by all means you should be setting the bar high and striving to clear it.
But on the other hand, if you set your goals too high in the first place, you are sometimes, at a sub-conscious level, setting yourself up for failure since you know, deep down, that it is not really possible for you to put a million dollars into your bank account this month, right? This is something that may take a little trial and error (doesn't much of life? :-) but start with a goal of increasing your current efforts/results by %10.
Depending on the goals area this might prove difficult enough, or it might seem to easy.
Hey, no one ever said it had to be difficult, eh? Check your results.
How do you feel about that? Were you successful? Should you raise the goal? You might find that shortening and lengthening the time frame for your goals will work in the same fashion.
That is, giving yourself a somewhat easier goal but pushing yourself to accomplish it a little quicker this time.
One of the really neat effects of this type of maneuvering is that you can decrease the time for say losing 5 pounds.
Do this for one or two cycles.
Then, go back to your original time frame.
You guessed it.
It will appear much easier to accomplish and you will most likely still make that goal quicker than you scheduled.
This also helps to nullify the boredom factor, one of the toughest things we all face when working on a regular basis towards our desired goals.
So, mix it up.
Raise the bar a little this time, shorten the time frame for the next cycle, raise the bar a little more for the next round and give yourself what you think is enough time, then go back to your original schedule.
You will see results, quite possibly better than ever before, and you will also feel much, much better about staying after it.
And that is one of the keys to not just setting, but 'getting' your goals, perseverance.
That is all well and good, and I of course recommend that you do stretch yourself and try to do something a little better, a little more often (or a little less, depending on the goal :-), but who decides just how tough your goal needs to be? You.
You know yourself.
If you need a tough goal to stay motivated, then by all means you should be setting the bar high and striving to clear it.
But on the other hand, if you set your goals too high in the first place, you are sometimes, at a sub-conscious level, setting yourself up for failure since you know, deep down, that it is not really possible for you to put a million dollars into your bank account this month, right? This is something that may take a little trial and error (doesn't much of life? :-) but start with a goal of increasing your current efforts/results by %10.
Depending on the goals area this might prove difficult enough, or it might seem to easy.
Hey, no one ever said it had to be difficult, eh? Check your results.
How do you feel about that? Were you successful? Should you raise the goal? You might find that shortening and lengthening the time frame for your goals will work in the same fashion.
That is, giving yourself a somewhat easier goal but pushing yourself to accomplish it a little quicker this time.
One of the really neat effects of this type of maneuvering is that you can decrease the time for say losing 5 pounds.
Do this for one or two cycles.
Then, go back to your original time frame.
You guessed it.
It will appear much easier to accomplish and you will most likely still make that goal quicker than you scheduled.
This also helps to nullify the boredom factor, one of the toughest things we all face when working on a regular basis towards our desired goals.
So, mix it up.
Raise the bar a little this time, shorten the time frame for the next cycle, raise the bar a little more for the next round and give yourself what you think is enough time, then go back to your original schedule.
You will see results, quite possibly better than ever before, and you will also feel much, much better about staying after it.
And that is one of the keys to not just setting, but 'getting' your goals, perseverance.
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