How can I reach my goals?

By David Shepard, Psy.D.

As the New Year kicks off, many people feel the New Year brings new opportunities to do things we want to accomplish. This feeling comes every year for many of people, which is why New Year’s resolutions have become so popular.

But many people have the experience of making New Year’s resolutions/goals that they never end up achieving. For some people this has steered them away from making New Year’s resolutions and for others they end up repeating the same New Year’s resolutions year after year. So what are the ways to improve the chances of you achieving your New Year’s resolutions or just goals in general?

Below are some tips that have shown to help people improve their chances of achieving their goals.

The first step in being able to achieve your goals is starting with the goals themselves. Your goals should be moderate in difficulty, meaning your goals shouldn’t be too hard (wanting to become a millionaire in a year) or too easy. Another thing about your goals is that they should be specific, general goals can lead to putting them on the back burner.

Once you have specific goals, it is helpful to write out why each goal is important and the impact that reaching these goals will have on your life.

The next step is mapping out a plan to reach each goal that you set for yourself. This plan should include steps/ smaller goals that get you closer to your main goal, and a timeframe for these steps/smaller goals. The timeframe should end with the date you expect to achieve each goal. Keeping track of progress towards your goals according to your timeframe is important to staying on track to achieving your goals.

A way to help with motivation of working towards your goals is to make your goals and timeframe known to people that support you. This is known as having accountability partners. Accountability partners help by checking in with you to make sure you are working towards your goals and staying on track. This could be done by having friends or family text occasionally to check in on your goal progress or announcing your goals on social media for online friends to check in with your progress.

If you would like to learn more about achieving your goals, please contact us at Therapy Now SF to book a free consultation.