How to Fail on Your Goals

Hi, friend! We're so glad you’ve landed here at the Break It Down Week Series! Here’s Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. 

How to fail on your goals?

Do it all now. Do it allllll now. Start on all of your goals right away, and cram as much progress in as you can. Burn the candle at both ends. Burnout fast, and then once you lose momentum and do something imperfectly or something feels hard, stop trying altogether. End the year pretty much where you started, except angrier and more frustrated.

Ugh!

No thank you, right!?

Friend, it's okay to want change now—that's why you're here, that's why you invested in the PowerSheets® process. 

Here's a truth that will change your life: the path to lasting, sustainable change is embracing little by little progress over time—not all at once.

Ready to try a new way? Here's how to succeed!

1. Space out your goals throughout the year. Use the Yearly Overview pages in your PowerSheets (page 66 - 67) to sketch out when you might begin each of your mini goals. Start small and just look at the season ahead—the next 90 days. What can you spread out over the next 3 months to help you make progress over time without burning out? At the end of March, you'll have a quarterly goal refresh, which is the perfect opportunity to evaluate your progress and plan out more mini goals ahead! A tip: cut out little sticky notes to easily move mini goals around from month to month, if you'd like. Here's an example from Lara!
2. Consider what needs to happen first. If you're struggling with which mini goal to tackle first, go with chronological order or whatever is best for your season. Some action steps need to happen before others, which makes for natural starting places!
3. Remember your time and resource budget. Be realistic about how much you can accomplish in a given day, week, and month. Remember there are 12 months in a year to make progress, and that we tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in a week, and underestimate what we can accomplish in a year! 
4. Have something you love about the life you're living now. It's natural to want instant gratification. Instead of fighting your desire for change, give yourself some a quick win by identifying, making room for, and appreciating something that's already in your life, something that makes you feel like the person you want to be. Maybe it's writing a note to a faraway friend, or drinking coffee from your favorite mug, or lighting a candle as you do the dishes. Find a way to love the life you're living even as you work to make change.

Friends, we're always in progress, and we will be for our whole lives. We're always in a state of growing. This lets us loosen our grasp on the idea of a finish line. Instead, we can learn to enjoy the joy in the journey, as they say. :)

Today's action step: Name something you can enjoy in the life you're living today, something that makes you feel like the person you were uniquely created to be. We'd love to hear what it is in the comments!