The beginning of any new journey is often the most exciting part. You’re energized and eager to leave your old life behind, while officially starting your new better one. But what happens once the excitement begins to wear off? Or even worse, you experience setbacks that you hadn’t been anticipating? That’s when you need to really dig deep within yourself and make sure that your mission is aligned with your values.
By committing to your goals, you’re choosing yourself, which is a powerful first step in the process. Then by having a system in place to see your goals through, you’ll become unstoppable. So, let’s take a look at 5 Ways To Stay On Track This Week.
1. Pick One Major Goal For The Week
If you’re like most of us, you probably have a million and one things to do each and every day, and then feel external pressure to do all of those things perfectly on top of it. There’s cooking, cleaning, laundry, work, family and friend time, exercise, grocery shopping, etc. and the list goes on and on forever. But if you’re spreading yourself too thin and using all of your energy up day in and day out on all of the items on your to do list, how will you have any energy leftover for the most important things in your life, or for yourself? The answer is you won’t.
That’s why it’s important for us to really place our focus and intention on one major goal each week so that we can give it the proper attention that it deserves. So, let’s say that you want to improve your health and lose weight this week, really focus on achieving that goal and making it a priority. Once you know what your goal is, then you can come up with a plan for achieving it.
2. How Will You Achieve Your Goal?
While losing weight to improve your health is an admirable goal, what are you going to do this week to achieve this goal? Are you going to block out an hour each day to exercise? Will you eat clean this week, choosing to make healthy meals for yourself and your family? What is going to be needed of you to see your goal through?
Write down all of the actions that you need to take this week to complete your goal. Once you know what’s required of you, then you can go after it. By having a plan in place, it will also take any guesswork out of the equation. This way you’ll no longer be wondering how much time you’ll need, or what you actually have to do in order to succeed. Your action steps will be right there in front of you.
After you’ve created your plan for the week, it’s OK to ask your partner, family, or friends for help so that you can see your goal for the week through. Chances are that your loved ones will want you to become the best version of yourself and will be happy to pick up some slack for you if you ask them to. Remember, you’re in this together as a family and as a community. You don’t need to take everything on yourself.
3. Why Is Your Goal Important To You?
Now that you have a plan in place, it’s important to truly ask yourself why it’s necessary for you to see this goal through. For the weight loss goal, maybe it’s because you want to become a better role model for your children. Or maybe you have a vacation coming up and you want to look and feel your best for it. Whatever the reason is that’s motivating you, truly embrace it. Let that fire inside of you burn so that you’re ready and energized to follow through with your goal this week.
You may also choose to visualize yourself achieving this goal. How will you look and feel once you accomplish what you want? How will it impact not only you, but also the other people in your life? Then use those feelings as fuel to motivate yourself. And whenever you’re in doubt, close your eyes and see yourself living the exact life that you want to be living – the very one that’s within your grasp as long as you commit to yourself and follow through.
4. Track Your Goal
You can say that you want to lose weight, but how will you know if you’re succeeding if there’s no way to track your goal? By writing down exactly how much weight you want to lose and being realistic about it, you’ll be able to see how you’re progressing along the way.
It’s also important to monitor your daily actions so you can see your progress in both the short-term and the long-term. Mark down how many times per week you exercised, how many times you ate healthy meals, and how often you were able to sleep for seven to eight hours per night. This way you’ll be able to see a direct correlation between your actions and how successful you are at achieving your goal.
5. Celebrate Your Success
How often do you accomplish something difficult and then just shrug it off once you’ve completed it? Just move on to the next thing without realizing what you just achieved? If that’s the case, those days are over. Write down how you’re going to celebrate after you achieve your goal and then make sure to do that very thing.
For the weight loss goal of being a better role model for your children, maybe you and your kids will do a movie night together to celebrate with a healthier version of popcorn so you’re continuing to follow through with your goal, while also spending quality time with the ones you love most. Or for the health goal of wanting to feel mentally and physically better before you go on vacation, maybe you’ll buy yourself new vacation clothes or that bathing suit you’ve been looking at online and using as motivation.
Once you achieve your goal, make sure to celebrate and reward yourself. You’re worthy and you deserve to have the best in your life today and every day. Then after you achieve and celebrate your main goal for the week, feel free to pick another goal for the following week. So, if your health is under control, then maybe you’ll want to improve your finances or your relationships. Then make that a priority and continue on. You’ll see that your previous week’s goal and actions will become habits, propelling you forward toward your new and improved better life – the one that you’ve designed and created for yourself.
