How to Set Goals and Actually Achieve Them

Goal Setting. This actually one of my favorite topics to talk about because I have seen how effective it’s been in my own life.

I have created a Step by Step guide, that walks you through my process of goal setting, what questions I ask, and how I do it so that you can set your own goals and actually achieve them. I want to help you feel Victorious in this area instead of defeated. Because how many times does a new year along and you think magically it’s going to change all of your habits. News flash it doesn’t. But with reflection and intentionality, you can start to see progress, you can make those changes that you want, and actually reach those goals. Instead of falling off the way wagon two weeks into the year and failing because you gave up. This is exactly why I always thought new years resolutions were pointless because they never stuck. I am someone who never used to sit down at the end of the year and truly reflect and goal set but over the last 3.5 years, I have started doing that. And so I can speak on the topic of goal setting now because I have made insane progress towards my goals over the last 3.5-4 years, and so many of the things that I have in my life, were once just a vision on my dream board, and now they are my reality! That my friends are possible for you too! When you stop just letting life happen to you, and instead of being reactive you start to become proactive, you will see massive changes in your life. It is possible to build your dream life, all while enjoying the life you have right now.

So let’s get into the nitty-gritty and the details on how to goal set!

There are a few steps you need to do before you can goal set for the year and I think this is the part that a lot of people miss. So with goal setting, you have to reflect back on the past, but then you also need to zoom out a few years into the future. So many times people just want to rush into the new year without taking the time to reflect on the past year, but how in the world can you make improvement if you don’t even know how things went the last year. At the same time, it’s really hard to goal setting if you don’t know the big picture you want for your life a few years down the road. These two things are crucial for your goal setting!

But before you can dive into all of that You have to be in the right frame of mind.
This is not just something you can do on a whim and then expect to see actual change. Now, will you have moments of inspiration when you’re not sitting down to goal set absolutely! And when those times come, get it down on paper, or into the notes section of your phone, or record it in a voice memo, so you don’t lose it. I am famous for getting inspiration while I’m driving in the car by myself so I use v voice memos a lot to help keep track of my thoughts, and then I’ll write it down when I get a chance.

But the reason I’m saying you have to be in the right frame of mind to goal set is that it requires bigger thinking than just your day to the day to-do list. You have to be able to zoom out and get a broader vision and picture for your life and you have to be in a place where you’re willing to look deep within yourself and really reflect on your past year. Those two things go hand in hand, and honestly require a lot of focus and you’ll be doing a lot of introspective work. If you skip these steps, you are less likely to achieve your goals because this part is so important. If you don’t know where you want to be in 5 years, in 3 years, at the end of next year, it’s going to be really difficult to goal set because you have no idea where you want to be. Most people just wander aimlessly trying to survive their days and cross off their to do lists.
But if you’re listening to this, chances are you are in a season where you want more. You want more for your life, you want more for your kids, and you’re trying to figure out how to make the most of your days.
But if you don’t have focus, if you don’t know where you want to be, you’re just trying to make it to bedtime, that’s not how you live an extraordinarily normal life. You need vision, focus, and intentionality!!
So let’s first expand this a little bigger than 2021. Let’s think 3-5 years down the road where do you want to be? Now for this, you don’t necessarily have to be so specific because a lot of times the specific details will change but the overarching theme will remain the same. For Example, for a long time, my husband and I had a vision and goal to move out to Tennessee and be close to my parents. That was the overarching goal. But there were a lot of things standing in the way of that, our finances, our job situation, and different things like that. With us knowing that our overarching big family goal was to get to Tennessee that helped keep us focused and rowing in the same direction when we had big decisions to make. Now there were a lot of sets back along the way. And it took us a little longer than we would have liked to get out here, but we are now living in Tennessee right next door to my parents. All of the decisions that we were making over the last 3-5 years, we would ask ourselves, is this helping us get closer to our goal of moving to Tennessee. And there were some decisions that we made that people didn’t understand because from the outside looking in, it almost seemed like we were going backward at times, but those decisions we made were actually getting us closer to being in TN. So that’s why it’s really really important to know where you want to be in 3-5 years. Because that would be so frustrating for you to spend all of this time, effort, and focus on something, that was getting you farther away from your big overall goals. You have to think big picture here.
The other reason you need to be in the right frame of mind when you go to goal setting is that If you are already feeling defeated, discouraged, and frustrated it’s going to be really really difficult for you to dream and goal setting. Like Really difficult because you’re heading into the new year, already thinking you can’t accomplish your goals. Maybe for you, this year, you just need some simple goals so you can have some wins. That will boost your confidence and help you see that you can do more and accomplish more than you ever thought possible.
Here’s the other thing, there are all kinds of goals and different areas in our life that we want to work on. But when you bombard yourself with too many goals, and you want to change all of these different areas of your life, all at the same time it can be defeating. It’s why typically new years resolutions don’t work. Because people set too lofty goals, too many goals, and they just can’t do it. You would be better off making one simple change that will stick, or that you could make a lot of progress on, than setting lots of crazy goals and accomplishing none of them. Consistency compounds.
Let’s keep in mind PROGRESS is the real goal here. To be moving forward is the goal. To be improving every day is the goal. It’s not “oh I failed because I didn’t hit my goal. the only way to truly fail is to give up. If you set a goal to move your body and exercise 3 days a week and you only do it two days a week, that’s progress. That’s huge and that needs to be celebrated. People fail on their new year’s resolutions 2 weeks into January because they gave up and quit, not because they couldn’t do it. I have set some pretty lofty goals, that seemed impossible but I did it because I didn’t give. I had to reassess at times and figure out what was working and what was not working, but I didn’t quit.
And so when you are looking at goal setting in your personal life, in your relationships, your marriage, your kids, your health, your business whatever it is, keep in mind that progress is the goal. The definition of progress is forward, or onward movement toward a destination. We need to celebrate every step of progress we make along the way. So I think if we can shift our mindset when it comes to goal setting that will make a huge difference.
The other thing is, sometimes we may miss the mark when it comes to the timeline. That’s okay, it’s really just there as a guide to keep us focused. We can shift the timeline, we can move the timeline, but don’t change the goal! The goal stays the same, and if it takes you a little bit longer to reach that goal, that’s okay, move the timeline, but don’t you dare give up.
For example. We had two big goals for this year in our family. One was to be student loan debt-free by the time I turned 30. In November of last year, we got a jump start on this goal and began aggressively paying off debt. By the time my birthday rolled around in the month of September, we had paid off $63,00 in student loan debt. We had made a ton of progress in paying off our student loan debt we still had a lot more to go. We reassessed and adjusted the timeline to be the end of 2020, and we came really close to reaching that goal but the final payment totaling $100,000 will be paid in January 2021. So that’s huge, that’s a really big accomplishment but I’m not going to beat myself up but because we had to adjust the timeline twice for that goal. So friends give yourselves grace but don’t give up. Adjust the timeline NOT the goal. Now our other big goal was to reach the top of our wellness company before I turned 30. We actually hit that goal earlier than expected in May! So sometimes you’ll hit them early, sometimes right on time, and sometimes later. That’s okay!
This is why I typically like to goal set 6 months at a time so that at the 6-month mark I can reassess and see how things are going, what’s working, what’s not working, what should stay the same, what should change, and then see if I need to adjust the timeline for anything. And I think that process or re-evaluating and re-assessing, has been a big contributor to me accomplishing so many goals that I’ve set for myself. Because again, the only way to fail is to give up. But if we aren’t monitoring our progress, it’s really easy to get defeated, and it’s really easy to give up.

Let’s go back and dive into the reflection step a little more. Here are some questions you can ask yourself.

What went well this year?? I know you’re probably thinking “It was 2020. Nothing went well or as planned” BUT If you sit down and really look at it, there were some great things that came out of this year so let’s find them. We all learned some really valuable lessons, but in order for them to stick, we have to take the time to reflect on them and write them down.

What things do you think went really well?
What positive lessons did you learn?
What things do you think you did really well? What improvements did you make? What kind of progress did you see?
What things did you love about this year?
These answers can be in any area of your life (family, friends, career, relationships, kids, health, finances etc.)

Now let’s look at the flip side of that…
What things didn’t go so well?
We could go for the obvious here or maybe take it a level deeper.
What are things that were in your control that you wish you hadn’t done? What mistakes did you make? What situations came up that you wish you handled better or differently?
We aren’t doing this to feel like a failure, we are reflecting on our own mistakes so we can learn from them and not make the same ones again. Failure is not the opposite of success, it’s PART of success! We have to stop thinking that the two areas are separate, you can’t have one without the other. You can’t have success without failure. I love the way Henry Ford said it, ‘Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” This is where the reflecting and the learning come into play. So we can do better next time.

DON’T Skip this part!

Now might be a really good time for you to pause this episode, go to my website so you can download and print the step by step guide I put together for you. It’s detailed and there is space for you to write your answer. I really want you to get the most out of this episode so if you have to break it down into two parts and then come back to this episode then do that.

So now you’ve looked at your big picture goal for the future 3-5 years out.
You’ve reflected on the past year, what went well, what did go so well.
Now on to a central theme or word for the year.

A few years back when my husband and I really started diving into goal setting together, we fell in love with the idea of a word for the year. Having a central focus and overarching theme for the year is incredibly helpful when it comes to staying on track with day to day decisions as well as big decisions. It helps when you can keep all areas of your life in alignment with the word you’ve chosen.

Here are a few examples of words or phrases we’ve picked in the past- “No Excuses” and “Intentional” And the idea behind this isn’t just to abandon your word after the year is done, but carry over that progress you’ve made into the next year. Hold onto those lessons you’ve learned, and when it comes time to pick a new word for the year, you can just build upon that. Or if you really love the word you can continue on and keep it as the focus of the next year. I carried the word intentional with me from 2019-2020. One of my favorite things that came out of 2019 because of the word intentional was monthly themed kid parties at my house. It’s one of those things that I always wanted to do but had a million reasons why I couldn’t, my house is too messy, I don’t like planning, etc. It started with Valentine’s day party and kept going from there. By the end of the year, we had it nailed down with the food, and we kept things simple. Decorations consisted of colorful table clothe from the dollar store and some balloons or streamers. We kept it very minimal but the memories we made were the best. If I hadn’t been actively looking for ways to be intentional with my mom’s friends and my kids, these themed parties wouldn’t happen. I can’t wait to hear all of the creative ideas that will come from you guys in this upcoming year or lessons that you have learned, or habits you have developed because you focused on one word for the year. To help make this a little easier for you, There is a whole page in the downloadable goal setting guide, dedicated to a word of the year along with several other examples of words that you could choose from.

Now that you have your word and your focus, it’s time to write out your tangible goals!! This step is actually probably the easiest, it’s what comes before and after this that can be the most difficult.

Once you have written out a few goals for the year, now comes the million-dollar question, how are you going to achieve those goals? What systems will you put in place to help you accomplish those dreams? You have to reverse engineer to figure this out and then you have to nail down your “non-negotiables”. This means that you are making a commitment to yourself, that you will not break, and you will hold yourself accountable to this no matter what. These two steps are what a lot of people miss. So let me give you an example of what I’m talking about.

Phil and I decided that we wanted to start going on more dates, and maybe that’s a goal you have with your spouse. Okay, so what does “more dates” look like for you? Does that mean once a month or once a week? Does that mean date night in or date night out? Or a combination. If it’s date night out and you have kids then you need to find a reliable babysitter who’s going to be able to watch your little ones while you go out. There are so many factors that come into play when you set a goal and it’s important to work through all of those details when you’re goal setting.
For example over the last few months Phil and I set Monday as our date nights, we have a babysitter who comes faithfully every Monday, our kids know it’s our date night, and it’s something we really look forward to. We don’t accept invitations to other events on Mondays because we have carved out that time for just the two of us. We set it as a goal to have weekly date nights and we have to protect that. It means saying no to other things so we can say yes to each other. Yes, sometimes things will come up and alter the schedule, like for us 6 weeks in the fall Charlie has soccer on Monday nights. We just told ourselves, oh we’ll figure it out and go another night, but then a week would go by and we didn’t go on a date because it wasn’t scheduled. Now we still went on a few and did some at home but it wasn’t that same level of commitment. It was really eye-opening for me what a difference it made having it on that calendar every week as a non-negotiable! We’re back to our regularly scheduled date nights now and sticking to it! That goes back to re-assessing, and keeping the goal the same but changing the timeline. It’s okay if you get off track a little, it’s never too late to set things back in motion so you can start going after your goals again.

But the non-negotiables is where people get tripped up. They don’t think they need to set such harsh rules to accomplish their goals but when you let yourself off the hook and you don’t keep yourself accountable that’s when you start to slip.

Let’s look at a few other examples: Say you want to stay paying off debt. You have to decide before you get your paycheck exactly how much you’ll be putting towards it and do that first before you pay all of your other bills and things. For us, we made 2 non-negotiables this year for paying off student loan debt. As soon as we got paid I knew exactly where it was going – first was our tithe and giving, then whatever the amount Phil and I had determined AHEAD of time would go towards our student loan debt. If you aren’t proactive and put those things last, your money will find other places to go.

Or let’s say you want to get healthier? What does that look like? Is it drinking more water? Maybe taking supplements? If you need that department I’ve got you covered, reach out! Or maybe it’s exercising?. What will that movement be? Will it be Going for a walk or going to the gym? If it’s at home what workouts will you do? If it’s a gym, which one will you go to, do you need a membership? How many days a week will you exercise? And then you need to pick Which days will be your non-negotiables for exercising?

Or say your goal is to read more. Okay well, ask yourself what is more? Is that reading one book in a month? Is that reading 15-30 minutes every day, 3 times a week, once a week? When are you going to find that time to read? Will it be before you watch TV or after? You have to figure out that timeline for yourself or else you’ll get to the end of the year and realize that same thing happened as all the other years and you didn’t read more.

See how we took it a step farther each time. Those practical steps are what’s necessary for you to stick with and accomplish your goals.

And then the next part is plaster your goals everywhere so you are constantly reminded of where you are going. Maybe that means post-it notes around your house or a new background for the lock screen of your phone. No matter what you choose Actually take the time to look at your goals, and envision what your life will look like, feel like, and be like once you obtain these goals. You have to let it really sink in and visualize the life that you want. Our brains are so powerful and these constant reminders and belief building will make all the difference.

Let’s recap real quick. Through this process you have looked back at the previous year, you’ve zoomed out to look ahead 3- 5 years, you’ve honed in on a central word or theme for the year, you’ve set your goals, and you’ve reverse engineered to figure out your non-negotiables so you can actually stick to your goals!! Phew, that was a lot! But friends it is so worth it, to take the extra time when you’re goal-setting to do all of these things. It’s been instrumental for me achieving my goals and I know it will be helpful for you too!

If you want to get your hands on this free step-by-step guide to goal setting, just head over to my new website Extraordinarilynormal.com, and subscribed to our email list. Then Go print it off download and start filling it out. There is lots of space for your to work through your thoughts and answer the questions, but then the last page is a recap page or the pretty page as I like to call it, and this one you can hang up on your wall, or on your office, or your bathroom or somewhere you’ll see it often. Keeping your goals at the forefront of your mind will help you accomplish them!

I would love to see the progress you guys are making on this! So post a picture in your stories of your final sheet or as you’re working on it, and don’t forget to tag me @megan_milakovic so I can see it! Happy goal setting friends, I am cheering you on!!