First Things First, You Need To Make Your Goals SMART

Welcome Pilgrims,

When we are setting our goals, we are going to work backwards. We are going to choose things today, that will get us to where we want to be tomorrow. First, we must establish our vision and mission so that we can distinguish our long-term from our short-term goals.

Your vision is what you want to be one day. Your mission is what you do every single day to get there. When a lot of people talk about their goals, they're thinking “I want to have…”, “I want to be…”, “I want to go…” etc. That's nice. That's fine. That's great that you have hope for one day, but this challenge is about today. Today we are going to start taking those steps to get us to realize what our vision is.

Your vision is tied to your core values. It is what’s important to you, it’s your purpose. Your mission are the actions that you're going to take that will support you getting to those things and both of those things should align. Your vision is who you want to be, your mission is what you are going to do to become that. Our goals should be the action items that we take to achieve both our vision and mission.

For the first step of this challenge, we're going to create SMART goals working backwards from our vision. SMART goals have nothing to do with intelligence and it has everything to do with tenacity. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely.

I previously had discussed, my vision wall, and the power that is in it. When I was in college and super stressed out my uncle told me to put my hopes and ambitions on a wall. Things that I wanted to have, who I want to be, places I wanted to go and so much more.

After some initial resistance, I did as he instructed and did a comprehensive vision wall of all the places I wanted to go and things I wanted to do. About two years later I found myself at several of the places on that wall. It was a surreal experience for me because I found myself at these places without having made it my sole objective to be there (in contrast to me achieving my goal of graduating university which was a very concerted effort).

One of the things I admire about myself is my sense of wonder. It was amazing for me to end up in places that I hadn't necessarily made the primary goal. For me to accomplish it as a byproduct of me pursuing other goals of mine was an amazing experience. I hope I continue to be surprised and find that joy in life. I wish that for you as well.

With that being said, it was awesome but I would just like to add just a little bit of clarification. Though there is power in that wall and it's great to be faithful and have hope. But, Faith without works is dead. I don't want to downplay all of the active choices made and actions I took.

I just want to put that out there were.

And on that that lead there couldn't on that path to accomplish all of these things. my uncle.

I swear my uncle did a Jedi mind trick or something on me to deliver the message that I needed to hear. In the conversation we were having, he basically told me to create SMART goals without having called them that. At 19/20 years old I wasn’t in a space to receive it direct. So, he led this horse to water. He had told me about manifesting, but with a full course load I didn’t have time to research anything that wasn’t on a final.

Oh sensei, so wise was he that he had me executing SMART goals while I was none the wiser. He just told me to do one action at a time. For every action I did, it opened up a whole sea of possibilities. I was able to name the things that I wanted, once I said it out loud and admitted it to myself… I kind of had to follow through.

If I didn't take the opportunities when they enrolled for me to get these things but that was on me, solely. I took that abstract feeling, and I made it specific places I had Rome, I had Paris, I had London I had Santorini. I went to three or four of those places.

There was an opportunity for me to go to London, but I didn't go. I wanted to go to London, but I told myself ‘No’, because in my mind, London, will always be there. I reasoned I'll always have a reason to go to London. So instead of going, I made an active choice to have this ‘ERASMUS’ experience of going to do these wild and crazy things that you can only do when you're young and without responsibilities. that In hindsight, I can see now I was holding myself back from getting what I really wanted (don’t worry, I’m working on that).

As a part of my growth over the last decade, I have learned that naming my goals and being honest with my ambitions is the foothold of everything that I have accomplished. For that reason, we are going to start now. Let’s start:

Specific

I just have to acknowledge that it’s all about the choices that we make. In being specific with what we want. We are giving a name to our hopes and our aspirations.

If you don't name it, then your energy will be scattered. why it's really important to, to name what you want, that , at every crossroad or intersection is either going to take you closer or further away from what you want.

Measurable

The next step, measurable. some of the things that we want may not be quantifiable, it might be something like I want higher self-esteem, or to feel better about myself or to be happy, or it might be something that's not easily measured. And, like, oh I want a better marriage. Whatever. I'm first going back to specific. What do you want it. And if it's not measurable then we need to break it down a little bit further, until it's as basic as possible.

Attainable

Your goals that you want it should be a challenge, but they should not be anything too difficult. I wanted to see the world, but didn't even have a passport. Where did I think I was going without a passport? I don’t know. Were my goals achievable? And me, saying yes to the semester abroad and Innsbruck actually got me a lot closer to those other places. When I accepted the semester abroad and was accepted into the program. I thought I was just going to be in this one city for five months, I did not know. I would have as much free time as I did hashtag I'm trying to move to Europe still, but trying to move to Europe still. I just told myself yes to travel. Because I had the opportunity to leave the country. And no, it wasn't in my first, second or third choice that I was placed.

Relevant

Relevant, sometimes the ‘R’ can be ‘Relevant’ or ‘Realistic’. Because achievable and realistic are so similar, I prefer to use ‘Relevant’. Now, this goes back to your mission statement and your vision statement. Why do you want these things? Is this something that is important to you. Is this something that you want because society tells you, you should have it or that you feel like at this age is something that you should have accomplished. Is this something that motivates you, because your motivation is going to determine how hard you go for this when you have that one thing in your head that just won't go away. when you when your mind wanders that's what it wanders to, We have to reevaluate and really look at the action items that we've given ourselves to see, is this something that's going to directly get me to my goal?

Timely

Timely is the next thing. again, with your vision, that's long term that's abstract, and you may not have a time point in which you want to set or reach these goals because it's just something you want when it happens and I understand like it there's a fine balance between control and allowing things to happen, and letting things unfold naturally. It is a hard line to tell him it's hard to know. Just when to to ease up and when to like, really dig down and like, give it more conviction. And that's something that I've struggled with as well.

Having a deadline and time constraints, is going to be very key because you don't want to give yourself too little time to the point where you are discouraged if you don't meet these goals, where it's impossible to meet these goals. Because, two things are going to happen. One, you are going to run yourself ragged to actually get it accomplished. And it may or may not be the quality of which you want it to achieve this goal or two, you're not going to meet the goal. And it's going to be a huge discouragement. Because you did all of this work, and didn't get there, and you may or may not have to start this whole process over again, than if you were to pace yourself.

If there is a goal that you want to reach especially if it is a large goal, don't have just one big deadline—have intervals. This is one of the reasons why this is a 12-week program. Honestly, it could be a 12-day program, but I want to pace this properly as we don’t want to rush. These are experiences and tips and techniques that I have learned over the years. For you, this may be a refresher or new material. I don’t want to rush you, but I do want to create a sense of urgency so that we can accomplish our goals.

These techniques have always been best received, when I had an open mind. Change is difficult and it doesn't happen overnight. My goal is to introduce a topic, then give you a week to execute it. Some weeks will have tasks, other weeks will have new concepts to consider. You will have a week to contemplate some new perspectives. Each week we will build on the first steps of the program.

This entire program to be aligned with SMART goals. and I hope that we can all agree that we are in this together. Be sure to share your progress online, if you are taking part in my program, or doing your own thing, share your progress with the #2020ReFocus so that others can cheer you on.

Until Next Time, Pella