7 Tips To Help You Stay On Track With Your Goals

It's easy to set a goal. But it's not that easy to actually achieve it. Often the reason that we don't achieve a goal is because we either don’t have it very clear in our mind (and are therefore not committed to achieving it) or we haven’t made room for it to fit into our lives.

So here are a few ideas for how you can stay on track, whether you need to work on your vision or your process.

 

1. Break Your Goal Down Into Stages.

When we set ourselves a big goal, it can be difficult to even begin because we just don’t know where to start. And with overwhelm comes a lack of action. So make it simpler for yourself. Break your goal down into achievable steps and set deadlines for each. Adding mini goals into the plan will make it all feel much achievable. You don’t run 26 miles on your first day of marathon training. You build up to it and maybe run a few 5k and 10k races along the way. Rome wasn’t built in a day, as they say. 

 

2. Believe In Yourself.

Manifestation is the practice of attracting positive energy to turn your thoughts and wishes into reality, and it has never been more popular. It’s about thinking of your desires as insights into your future life, and acting as if you have those things in your life right now. And it takes practice. You have to believe that it can happen and feel an emotional connection to the process of getting there. It’s not enough to think, ‘Oh, that would be nice, one day’. Visualise yourself living the life of your future self right now and see how much easier it is for those dreams to become reality.

 

3. Write A Letter To Your Future Self.

For those of you who like to write things down, this manifestation technique is for you. Sit down and write a letter to yourself dated for the end of the year 31st December. In it, tell yourself everything that you have achieved this year. The key here is that you are writing it in the past or present tense. It’s been proven in studies that writing in the present tense tricks your brain into believing that what you are writing has already happened - very similar to the manifestation beliefs above. For example, if you have goals to travel, buy a house or get a promotion, then write in the letter “This year, I travelled to Mexico and Scotland and had a great time. I’m so pleased that I went. I also finally bought my own home and I have a lovely kitchen that I cook in. Morning coffee on the sofa is something I enjoy every day. I’m a manager at work now…. etc”.  

 

4. Create A Vision Board.

For the more visual amongst you, you may need to physically see your goals in imagery in front of you on a regular basis in order to help you to manifest them. The easiest way to do this is to create a vision board - either physically or digitally - and place it in a spot that you look at regularly. A vision board is a mood board of uplifting and motivational images that you have gathered together to represent your future goals. They can also include inspirational quotes and messages that represent the way you want to live your life. But you can include whatever you want really. You can either get crafty and cut out imagery from magazines and create a collage to pin up at home, or go digital. You can collate your imagery on Pinterest, Instagram or TikTok - or pull them all together to make yourself a new background image for your laptop or phone that keeps you on track. The science behind this is the reinforcement of the bigger picture. When you see the images regularly will help you stay focused on your goals.

 

5. Try Habit Stacking.

On a much more practical level, it’s much easier to add a habit into your life if you stack it on top of something that is already a habit. For example, want to remember to take your vitamins? Keep them next to your toothbrush so you take them each night when you brush your teeth. Or next to the kettle, so that when you make your morning coffee, you can take them whilst the water boils. It’s that simple. 

 

6. Put It In Your Calendar.

We’re planners. We love a list - if you haven’t already worked that out. But we also like to be realistic with our time.And the next way to do that, is to schedule things into your calendar to make sure that they fit - and if they don’t, recognise that you need to either postpone, delegate or get rid of tasks to make space. So if you want to fit in that yoga class, then make sure it fits into your day. 

 

7. Crowd Out To Make Space.

And if you don’t have time to fit in a new hobby, then it may be time to make changes. Crowding out literally means to force something out of your life by filling its space with something else, and it can be applied to all aspects of your life. Whatever you want to change, you don’t have to do it all at once. Simply give more space to good habits and bad habits will naturally feature less in your life. Add more greens to your plate, start meeting friends for walks instead of drinks, read more books instead of scrolling… the list goes on. Read more here.