This year, what will you do differently to reach your goals?! What am I doing differently to reach my goals?!

What are your goals? Are they SMART?

This year I am not playing around. I am writing all of my goals down. My goals are following the SMART goal criteria so that they are clearly defined and measurable. You can check out the article I wrote on SMART goals here.

What are you doing DAILY to make progress on your goals?

This weekend I thought about all the things I want to accomplish in the next 6 months. Then I thought about what I need to do everyday to make the tiniest bit of progress everyday.

Here’s what I’m doing differently, I made a schedule. I am scheduling in the daily activities that will take me closer to the life I envision. Eric Thompson ( a great motivational speaker, you can check him out here) says “Look at your day. If you’re daydreaming more than you’re working that’s a problem. If your day does not consist of work then you are not going to be successful.”

Are you tracking your behavior to ensure you are holding yourself accountable?

At the end of each day, I am checking to make sure that I followed the schedule I made for myself. I am tracking my activities. I am keeping a journal/ a log of what I schedule and what I actually did. I find that this makes me excited about what I need to be excited about – the actual work.

Of course when I was scheduling, the second thought that came to mind when putting this routine together was where can I can make extra time. There never seems to be enough hours in each day to do all the things you want to do.

Where can I make extra time?

I LOVE watching Ted talks in my spare time. I came across a video on time management a few weeks ago. You can watch it here.

Anyway, Laura Vanderkam tells the story of a very busy woman who had to deal with an emergency that popped up. Her water heater broke and her basement flooded. Despite her hectic schedule, this woman found 7 hours in her week, to deal with the aftermath of her flooded basement.

7 hours equates to one extra hour each day. Laura makes the point that if most of us were asked if we could find 7 hours to train for a triathlon in our week or mentor others we would say we were too busy. When you have to find 7 hours to deal with an emergency you find it. The lesson is that we make time for what is important to us.

This helped me to think about what is NOT important to me.

I wrote a post a few weeks ago called Entertainment vs. Education. You can check out the post here. Because of that post, I examined how much time I spend on entertainment and how much I spend on education.

To create extra space in my schedule, I realized that something that isn’t as important to me as the goals I have, is tv. I’m human though, and there are times when I’m SO drained I tend to flip on the tv because it’s the easiest thing to do and I’m in the habit of doing it. Then I get sucked into watching HOURS of tv. It becomes so difficult for me to turn off the tv after one episode. This year to deal with that temptation, I cancelled my tv subscription altogether.

No more putting off writing until I watch one more episode of the Bachelor. I refuse to let tv eat up hours and hours of my week. Now there’s no excuse, I made time.

So, now I challenge you to ask yourself the same questions. What are your goals? Are they SMART? What are you doing daily to make progress on your goals? Do you have a schedule/routine to ensure you’re making daily progress? Are you tracking your behavior to ensure you are holding yourself accountable? Where can you make extra time for your goals? What activities aren’t as important in your life and are causing you to waste time? Are you willing to cut these activities out of your life?