Reach Your Goals More Easily Using One Simple Step
In order to help me decide, I created a list containing everything I imagined I wanted to do before the end of 2007. This list contained goals large and small, such as:
- Learn to surf.
- Do a backflip.
- Practice piano.
- Wake up earlier.
- Stay healthy.
- Become healthier.
- Move to Michigan.
- Learn to whistle with two fingers.
- Draw more.
- Create a new website/blog.
- Write often.
- Develop an exercise routine.
- Take more pictures.
- Simplify.
- Read self-help, inspirational, and motivational books.
- Get organized.
- Sell, donate, or throw away things I don’t need.
- Be less rigid.
- Worry less.
- …
Each time I went to write something down, something else would come to mind. I’d write that down too, which in turn would remind me of something else to add. The list ballooned in this manner until it contained nearly 60 goals I wanted to accomplish in a year.
After exhausting all ideas for my 2007 goals, I read the list start to finish — and experienced an epiphany.
There was no reason I should settle for only one New Year’s Resolution. If everything I wrote down was something I truly wanted to do, then why set the bar so low and limit myself to selecting only one?
I realized that nothing was stopping me from accomplishing all 60 goals except myself. If I was bent on making a single New Year’s Resolution, it could be “to stop living a life of routine, and start living consciously.”
Only five months into the year and I’ve already reached over half of the goals on my list. I’ve quit my computer job, reduced my possessions tenfold, moved to Michigan, and created LifeReboot.com. I read, write, draw, and practice piano/keyboard often. My new life makes me eager to wake up early, and although there is still some routine involved, the freedoms of being jobless have made me much less rigid.
As for the “one simple step” mentioned in this article’s title, it’s elementary: Write down your goals.
You’ll reach your goals more easily by identifying them — and putting them in writing ensures you’ll remember them. Take this a step further and put your list of goals someplace where you’ll see it every day: on your bedroom mirror, as a bookmark in your agenda book, or anyplace in your bathroom.
When you allow your goals to remain hidden, it makes it simple for you to lose sight of them. If you lose sight of your goals today, you’ll be no closer to reaching them tomorrow — so keep them in focus and write them down!
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6 Responses to “Reach Your Goals More Easily Using One Simple Step”
I realize a consistency in your posts. Make an effort. Write down your goals, as if they were shopping lists.
So simple. Yet so difficult to let go of other stuff.
This reminds me a lot of http://www.43things.com/ I haven’t updated my 43 things in a while so I’ll have to check and see if I’ve accomplished any of them.
Can you show us your backflips?
@Helen
You’re so kind to read and comment on my site as often as you do. Yes, most of what is suggested on the site is simple — practically common sense, even — but actually following through with any of it still requires the reader to choose to make changes.
@Lauren
As far as social networking sites are concerned, http://www.43things.com/ is my most favorite. Linking people and creating discussions by similar interests, instead of your standard friend of a friend of a friend site, creates a different purpose for the site. Instead of focusing on “improving” yourself simply by increasing your friend count or trying to draw attention to yourself, 43things helps you recognize what you want to do in life and exposes you to other things you might like to try.
@Orun
Perhaps on a trampoline with a spotter. Baby steps.