Have you ever had a burst of inspiration and motivation when it comes to a goal you want to achieve? Right away you start planning out how you will achieve that goal. You get super excited about how you will feel once you achieve it. Then a week later you’ve forgotten about it. Has that ever happened to you?
Let’s be clear, you didn’t forget because you don’t care or because you’re too lazy. Life happens! Other things come up that take priority, and other things get pushed to the back burner. Maybe an illness takes you out for a few days, a big deadline at work keeps you preoccupied, or your favorite show is now available on Netflix, so clearly a binge-fest is in order.
The problem isn’t a lack of motivation. The problem is that when your goal is not staring you in the face every single day it’s easy to forget about it. Like that shirt that fell to the back of the closet and you find it a year later thinking “oh I love this top, I didn’t even realize it was gone!” When we don’t put it in front of us often enough we move onto the next thing that is in front of us.
So how do I prevent losing sight of my goals when everything else in live is fighting for my attention?
1.Commit to a daily visualization practice
Do you remember when you initially envisioned how you would feel when achieving a goal? You saw yourself as the person you wanted to be after the goal was accomplished. You made an emotional connection with the outcome. If we aren’t emotionally charging ourselves up about the goal on a regular basis we easily forget about it.
Now, the key isn’t just to picture yourself crossing the marathon finish line or seeing your book on the shelf at Barnes & Noble. Whatever your goal is, you have to also picture yourself working towards it every day, and see yourself sticking with it through the tough times to make it happen. If your goal is to lose weight, don’t just picture how you will look and feel once it’s accomplished! Picture yourself every day getting up and pressing play on your work out, even when you’re tired and bed looks so much more inviting. See yourself pushing through those last 30 seconds of burpees, sweat dripping off your face. Or if your goal is to write and publish a book, picture taking the time every day to sit down and write. See the distractions that you maneuver around like an expert level ninja. Nothing is getting in your way!
Also picture how you deal with setbacks. So your big proposal at work got turned down, or you put on a few extra pounds over Christmas. How do you picture yourself bouncing back from the setbacks? This is the crucial component to your visualization practice because WE ALL HAVE SET BACKS. But we forget to prepare ourselves for how to deal with them and not give up.
2. Get Social Support
You need to tell people about your dream! Share it with your family and friends, or the hundreds of strangers you follow on Instagram. Tell then WHAT you goal is, HOW you are going to accomplish it, and WHY it is so important to you.
There are two reasons why this is so important.
- To get support. You want people to cheer you on. The goal becomes a real living thing when you put it out in the universe like that.
- For Accountability for us procrastinators out there. That way when people ask you “so how’s that book coming” you are held accountable to that goal. Or of you are trying to establish a regular fitness routine you can buddy up with someone else who also has that goal, and be each other’s accountability partners.
“An unspoken goal is a hope.”
3. Have a weekly revisit of your goal from the past week
The last thing to do is to regularly check in with your goals. Each week schedule a time to sit down and measure yourself on a scale of 1-10 based on how you did in moving toward your goals. Notice where you messed up, quit, or stopped. Without making any judgements, see what has worked for you and what hasn’t. That way your progress serves as momentum rocket fuel and keeps you moving forward.
