Getting Your Goals Back on Track
It’s hard to believe that it’s March already. In some ways I feel that time has moved slowly because of the long winter our area is having. In fact, we have ice on the ground today, and school has been cancelled. In other ways I feel March has arrived very quickly, taking me by surprise.
Nothing says that time is moving on, though, like reviewing goals you made at the beginning of the year. In January, I shared with you my goals for the year as well as home projects I hoped to complete this year.
As I look back over the past two months, I realize that I have not been on track to reach some of my goals. For instance, one of my goals was to lose about 30 pounds by June 1. Well, I’m only down 3 pounds. Yes, that’s 3 pounds less, but I’m frustrated with my efforts. I feel like I should have lost more weight by now. However, the process of losing weight has included training for and completing a 5k. I did meet that mini-goal this past weekend!
Also, I had goals of completing two home projects a month. Since we are now in March, I should have completed four home projects. The truth is I’ve only completed one. While I’ve been working on the others, I just can’t get the final pieces to come together to get them fully completed.
So, what do you do when you realize that you are not on track to reach your goals?
I’ve been thinking about this for a while when I realized I was not reaching my goals. I have come up with some ideas that I’m going to implement to see if I can get myself back on track.
1. Don’t beat yourself up for getting sidetracked. It would be so easy to tell myself that I’m a failure and that I’ll never get anything done so I might as well give up. That would do me no good and would not move me any further along in reaching my goals.
2. Determine the next action for each goal. Sometimes we get bogged down when we think about all that needs to be done to reach a goal. Identifying the next action to take for each goal will help you to focus on one step at a time. Then your goal won’t seem so overwhelming.
For instance, say you are trying to organize your family photos, and you don’t know where to begin. Your next action would be to gather all the photos in one place. Don’t get sidetracked by all that has to be done to organize the photos. Just keep moving forward by determining the next action.
3. Give yourself a “do over.” Evaluate where you are in reaching your goals and adjust your timetable for reaching those goals. I’m going to use our Spring Break vacation week to get caught up on some of my projects.
4. Decide whether your goals need to be met or not. I know that may sound kind of strange, but if you are not on track to reach a goal, there may be something that is holding you back. You may realize that the goal you set was too broad or was something you really didn’t want to do or weren’t prepared to do. Nothing feels better than releasing yourself from unrealistic goals.
If all else fails, just tell yourself, “It’s only March.” There is still a lot of time to accomplish your goals. So don’t give up!
How are you doing with your goals this year?