Goal Setting January 2020 and Making Them SMART

How is it already 2020?! I cannot believe it and neither will you but *cough* I’m 40 this year!! I’ve talked before about how I joined a goal setting accountability group in June 2018 (hosted by the fabulous Syma from Coastal VA’s) and haven’t looked back. The best way to reach your goal is to share them with others, people who will support and guide you to your end result. Being accountable to others is not only motivating but sometimes you need help breaking down the goal into smaller more manageable bite-size chunks enabling you to achieve your goals not become overwhelmed by them.

Goal Setting Hints and Tips :

Start with a dedicated notebook. I started one at the beginning of my accountability journey and I use it only for goal setting. Syma creates some super worksheets to help clarify our goals, from where we are right now to where we want to be. I love a bit of creativity I find this not only has a calming influence but I absorb the information, feelings and goals sometimes reaching them without realising. I create mini vision boards and do a spot of bullet journaling. You can be as creative or not as you want this is your book.

Don’t forget to ensure your goals are SMART. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-based.

Specific : Make sure your target or goal is well defined.
Measurable : Ensure there is a measurable metric. i.e. Grow my Instagram following is a bit wholly, choose a specific number but don’t make it unobtainable – example my current following is 2300, my goal might be 3000. Using a specific target means I actually knows when it’s been achieved.
Achievable : Don’t make your goals too easy or too hard.
Realistic : It’s great to have dreams but in the same breath you need to make each step realistic. You don’t want to get to the end of the year and feel deflated. If we go back to my earlier example of growing your Instagram following a target like 3000 is far more manageable and realistic than say 10,000 which is a massive leap and unless I go viral probably isn’t going to happen. I can wish but being realistic is better.
Time Based : Break your goals down into smaller monthly mini-goals so you aren’t overwhelmed. Giving yourself dates also helps you to assess your progress and also reassess the goals themselves.

My 3 Main Goals for 2020 : 

I’ve three main goals for the beginning of 2020 – publish my second book, affiliate marketing and time management.

Publish Book Two : This has been a long, long labour and not of love at times! Every time I think I’m getting there something derails me, leaving me feeling flustered and overwhelmed.  But sometimes we have to think about how far we have come not how far we have to go. With the help and support of my accountability group I actually wrote 30,000-word first draft – that’s an achievement in itself. I’m now on what is draft 4 and it’s getting somewhere. It’s easy to get self-consumed in what we didn’t do rather than what we did.  So yay 2019 me. 2020 me is going to “publish” this book.

Affiliate Marketing : I use ads on my site and am signed up to a few platforms but I don’t make a great deal of passive income from them. I sort of rely on the ads doing their job and well if you want to earn 16p a day then it works, but I know I can do better.  Obviously this is pretty wholly and needs to be broken down massively! But passive income via affiliate links is something on my radar for 2020.

Time Management : I need to get better at using my working hours effectively, I’ve been known to get lost in the social media black hole or be doing anything other than the tasks at hand. I’m also that mum running about before school because I’m disorganised! I really want to look at time blocking and was recently introduced to Parkinson’s Law “work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion”. Basically, if we give ourselves an hour to do something it will take an hour if we give ourselves a week it will take it! I guess this is why when you have a 10-minute deadline you suddenly become the most productive!

I use a calendar, my diary and the children to try and schedule everything but I always seem to be all over the place!  Boxclever Press sent me a 2020 Family Weekly Planner Calendar to help me keep the household organised (well that’s the plan!). Each page is a week-to-view calendar grid layout with columns for up to 6 people, perfect for busy families it’s really useful to see everyone (and for the children to see too) where they are at a glance. I love the time-saving overlay for writing down regular weekly events, such as football training, dance and gymnastics it’s such a simple but clever idea.

This planner is however 18 months so ripping out the pages from August-December 2019 felt a little wasteful (the girls have them for doodles). I did though save the perforated shopping and to-do lists for my journal – the shopping lists are really handy for keeping tabs on when I run out of items, Olive appears to have been utilising ours (pee’s I think she means her favourite veg to go with her brocle! I love it when they can’t spell!).  The Family Weekly Planner Calendar contains all the key UK dates and holidays, a clip-on pen and a stash full lof stickers (YAY!) everything you need to keep yourself on track.  Usually, calendars are a whole month and you can forget to look etc .. but having to physically tear off each week and organise the next is going to be a really useful part of my weekly planning.  Writing things down helps to validate events, boosts memory and recall and I get to play with stickers and pens which makes me happy! The Family Weekly Planner Calendar uses really good quality paper (no pen bleed!), it’s well made and looks nice too and priced at £11.99 it’s a no brainer.

*Edit after my post went live I received an email from Boxclever Press about my thoughts on feeling wasteful for ripping out August to December as the calendar is 16-months. Having a calendar 16-months in length actually reduces Boxclever Press’ environmental impact dramatically. By allowing them to sell products to both academic and calendar year customers, reducing transportation and the cost of wasted products in comparison to producing two versions to suit all customers’ needs. This is a really valid point and one that wasn’t clear to me on the site. *

You can see from my explanations that none of these goals are currently SMART, I’ll spend the rest of January drilling them down, making them more specific and setting mini targets

 

I’m taking part in the  Monthly Goals (and updates!) Linky hosted by Charlotte over at CharlotteMusha.co.uk

Boxclever Press provided me with a Family Planner to review however all thoughts and opinions are my own.

Found this useful wondering how you can show me your appreciation? Well, there are some ways you can say thanks and support my website: ➡