Throughout the whole year we often find ourselves in situations that leading us to making new resolutions and setting new goals, whether it is a start of a school semester, new job, New Year’s Eve, or an unexpected event. But mostly, our early enthusiasm dissolves with the morning fog. To care more about one’s health, to exercise, to quit smoking, to start earning more. It sounds vaguely. And sincerely, it doesn’t say anything about the ways how to approach our goal. How then should a really strong and simultaneously motivating goal look like?
- Your goal should be a challenge. It means it should be interesting and difficult enough but not unrealizable.
- CLARITY comes first. Effective goals are clear, measurable, specific and based on behaviour, instead on consequences. What is the difference between a strong and a weak goal?
For example:
To improve my English. To improve my English to the advanced level by the end of June.
Quit smoking. Quit smoking completely until the end of February.
- Believe in your own abilities of reaching a goal. This persuasion has a huge influence on how you define your goal, but also on your behaviour and approach towards your resolutions.
- Think about your strengths, which you could use while reaching your goal. Don’t be afraid of asking the others, which of your features they consider to be your strong ones.
- Think positively. Pay attention to your thoughts and replace the negative ones with the positive ones. Train your positive thinking until it works automatically for you. Cliché? It may seem so at the first sight, but basically it is a cognitive behaviour. For example, you have started to teach English again.
Situation A: You are not sure from the start, because there are already a lot of English teachers in your town. You think about how it will not work. Consequence: you will speak to less people, spread less flyers and so on. Automatically because of your own behaviour, you make the number of potential students shrink and, as a result, the courses will not work.
Situation B: Initial thought: “It is going to be more difficult but I will do whatever I can to find enough students!.“
Consequence: More people asked, more promotional activities, etc. All these activities automatically brings more students to your language courses and everything will work much better.
Magical powers of the Universe? No, just a result of our daily thoughts influencing our life and behaviour.
- Create a strong and lively image of how the reaching of your goal and the accomplishment of your resolution is going to look like.
- Constant feedback – monitor regularly your progress on the way to your goal. This way you will maintain your enthusiasm easier and enjoy your progress more.
- If your goal is complex and involves several smaller goals simultaneously, it is good to make sure that you don’t overestimate yourself. A complex work can last a long time. For this reason, if you have more various goals, plan your time and your sources effectively. Set your priorities and arrange your time. Don’t work until you are completely exhausted or until you have to give up another smaller goal because of the over-exposed one.
- Surround yourself with people and sources, that will remind you of your goals and will help you with your inner motivation. These are the exterior factors. Motivation from the outside is not as strong as motivation from the inside. Keep that in mind and rely on yourself, exterior elements are just extra help.
- Enjoy the moment of reaching your goal. It is a great source for your further progress and new goals. Have yourself something exceptional what will make you happy. A kind of reward for you for the invested effort.
The last hint. With every aim and resolution, it is good to have a plan how to reach the goal. Besides a clear vision of what you want to reach (strong goal), it is important to know the exact time period, all the steps you have to make, to arrange the schedule of the activities, and last but not least, to set up a time interval and a form of reflecting your effort (whether it goes well and where do you need to work harder).
Is this article inspirational for you in any way? Let us know how.