A few weeks into the new year, and how many of you are still on track for your new year’s goals and resolutions? Unfortunately many of us give up on our goals by the time January finishes - so what gives? Do you lack the discipline, willpower, or motivation needed to actually achieve your goals? I would argue that’s not the case - but rather most people are lacking a clear plan to actually achieve their goals.

The good news? You’re not alone and you’re not incapable of achieving the goals that matter most. The less good news? It still won’t happen on its own, you have to put the work in on CREATING the plan, and also FOLLOWING the plan. So let’s dive into the necessary components for setting big goals and actually achieving them:

1. Set Your Someday Goal (Your Ultimate Vision)

What do you ultimately want for your life across ALL areas? This is the first step - and this is the time to think BIG. What does your health look like? What does your family look like? Where are you living? What are you doing for work? Are you working? What do your finances look like? What are you doing to grow spiritually? 

These are the questions you want to answer when thinking about your ultimate vision. This should be something 10+ years out from where you are now. The more clearly you can identify this, the more you can start to see and feel what’s possible. Don’t dream small here, steps 3-5 will talk about how to bring these goals to fruition. 

If you need help getting started, start writing out what your absolute perfect day would look like in the life you are living 10+ years from now. Describe it in detail, and you’ll be on your way to creating the ultimate vision.

2. Identify Your Purpose (The Why Behind Your Goals)

Once you’ve created your ultimate vision, it’s time to connect emotionally with it. Simply making a vision board or dreaming big dreams won’t tie real emotion and drive behind it. This is where you need to get specific on why this vision is so important for you. Not for anyone else - but for you. Ask yourself why do I want to _______ (have a million in the bank, lose 20 lbs., etc.)? Then keep asking why and keep going deeper. It usually takes 5-7 ‘why’s’ to get to the real emotional reason that’s important. 

Maybe you want to lose weight to look better, you want to look better to be more confident, you want to be more confident to live with more courage, and you want to live with more courage so you can demonstrate to yourself and your family that you are a person that follows through on their goals. See the power that going deeper can have?

3. Work Backwards (Goal Setting to The Now)

Pick the goal that means the most to you on your someday goal. Maybe it’s to be a certain body fat percentage or run your first ultramarathon. Now you simply have to work backwards. If you want to run a 100 mile race in 10 years, what do you need to do in 5 years to be ready? 1 year? 6 months? 3 months? 1 month? 1 week? You get the idea.

Maybe in 5 years you need to complete your first 50k in a certain amount of time. But maybe this week you need to walk for 30 minutes a day and add one serving of vegetables to your diet. This is how we take big, scary goals and break them down into manageable things that you can be doing right now.

4. Your Yearly Game plan (The 1/3/5)

Now we create the yearly game plan. Take the main 1 thing that you want to accomplish in the next year. Then you’re going to create 3 strategies that will help you get there. If your yearly plan is to run a half marathon, your 3 strategies could be Improve Overall Fitness, Improve Nutrition, Improve Sleep and Recovery. From these 3 strategies you’ll create 5 tactics for each strategy that will help you get there. For example, for Improving Fitness, your tactics might include running at least 3x/weekly, completing 2 HIIT training workouts per week, daily morning walk for at least 15 minutes, hire a running coach, and joining a gym. Repeat this for each strategy.

5. Weekly Plan of Attack (Time to Take Action)

Now it’s time to get to work. Based on your 1/3/5 plan above, pick ONE to THREE things that you can accomplish this week to move you closer to your ultimate goal. The key here is to get in the habit of taking action, and to build healthy habits around your strategies and tactics listed above. Most people benefit from picking process based goals over outcome goals (ex: run 3x/week for 30 minutes instead of run a sub 8 minute mile). Repeat this process weekly, and continue to stick with it as you learn the process of setting, reviewing, and refining your goals.

6. BONUS - Tell anyone. Tell everyone!

Bonus tip - get external accountability! Tell someone you trust that can check in and hold you accountable. Post it on social media if that will keep you accountable. Send us a message. Just don’t go at it alone. If no one knows about your goals or what you’re trying to accomplish, it makes it that much easier to just let it disappear and go out of sight out of mind. Make sure you’re getting external accountability in addition to internal accountability.

We understand this a complicated process, but one we help guide our clients through that are looking to achieve big goals when it comes to their health, their fitness, and their life. If you want a workbook we’ve created to follow along with this exact process, text GOALS to (760) 477-4361 and we’ll send over our goal setting workbook we’ve put together, as well as answer any questions you have. 

Dream big, but take small daily actions to get there!