I’m well known for jumping the gun when it comes to goal setting.
You best believe that around the last weeks of December I have a list of things that I want to work on for the upcoming year.
I have found that my overachieving ways get the best of me and that after just three months I am already quiting and giving up on my goals.
Which is why this year I decided to break my goals into manageable bit size pieces.
For 2019, I decided to split my goals quarterly. That means,(Jan/Feb/March/April) I will be focusing on three goals. The first goal, for instance, was creating a budget, saving $1,000, and starting the snowball plan towards eliminating debt.
Related Blog Post: Dave Ramsey Baby Steps
Why this matters
By focusing on just three goals for four months. I was able to give myself enough time to not just reach a goal, but also to create a habit.
For the first time I had seen a difference in my finances. I was able to pay off my credit card and the feeling of getting one step closer to being debt free makes all the difference when it comes to feeling motivated to continue working towards any goal.
However, in the past I would have gone in overload and decided that this was the year I was going to be fit, this was the year I was going to completely organize my life, this year was the year that I was going to get my finances in order and this year I was going to conquer a mountain of other things in my long to-do list.
Instead, I choose to focus January – April on my finances. First, with Budgeting. Knowing how much money was coming in and how much was leaving. I was able to not only do this but really see dollar for dollar how much money I made and how much left each month.
The second step in Dave Ramseys Baby Steps was saving up those $1,000 emergency fund. I had never saved up that amount of money before that I wasn’t tempted on “treating myself”
When I started to become more and more motivated to actually put in the work was when I started paying up all the extra dollars I could find towards my credit card and then seeing the number go down was such a relief. I smiled that entire week because that credit card I got when I was in college and the number was finally zero. I didn’t owe that money anymore.
I didn’t give up on this goal right away. I was able to put all my focus on this one goal and now that I feel like it has become a habit I decided to start working on my blogging goals.
Now that I feel like I have not only created a habit with my finances and seen results for the months of May-August, I will be focusing on blogging consistently, sharing my posts on more social media platforms, and just overall learning about this space and really making this blog my own and working on using my voice.
I feel like my blog is a work in progress. But I’d rather have that then completely giving up on it. If anything I feel like my blog is a place that I can turn to because it’s a space where I voice on things that matter to me.
How to stay motivated
Like I mentioned before consistency is a great way for me to really stay
motivated. By putting every single penny towards saving up those $1,000 to using every single dollar towards my debt I really focused on my goals.
Here are also some other tricks that helped.
01. Keeping a dream board
I’m a huge believe in visualization. For the past two years not only have I written down my goals and broken them down into daily steps and manageable steps to achieving those goals, but I also printed pictures that represent those dreams and especially on those days where I am exhausted and I feel like I can’t catch a break. I open my folder and flip through those pictures and focus all of my energy on those goals.
02. Keeping my why present
My why is not just to be finally stable, but to be able to do all the things that my little heart desires and I don’t want something like money stoping me from doing all the things that I love, like traveling. So many times I have said, “I want to travel the world” and I’m always thinking, what If debt wasn’t holding me back.
I don’t want to feel this resentment towards money, because who doesn’t love money?!! I want more of it in my life, and I want money to be a tool where I am able to achieve all of my goals. Knowing why I’m working so hard is important.
03. Taking Baby Steps every single day
By working daily on my goals I am able to achieve so much more than by trying to overpack myself with so many things. In my weekly calendar I wrote down my goal for the month. For instance, I wanted to pay extra money towards my credit card so what I did I would write down the exact amount. I wrote down where I was doing to cut expenses on a weekly basis so that I could reach my goal.
Goal Updates For The First Quarter
Goal 01: Waking Up Early
This has been a goal that I’ve been trying to work on for a while. I usually wake up early to go to work, but by the time I get home I feel like I don’t have enough time to do everything and I wanted to wake up 2 hours early to work on my blog. I started with the of waking up at 5:00 a.m. and quickly realized it wasn’t going to work for me, which is why I moved it to waking up at 6:00 a.m. and with summer here I’m finding it really hard to go to sleep early and wake up early.
02. Finances
As I mentioned before my main focus was on my finances since the beginning of the year and because I focused all of my energy on this goal I was able to make a lot of progress. I’d love to share more on the topic if you guys are interested. I do have a few blog posts that talk more in depth about the topic that I will link here:
Blog Post: Finances Journey
03. Health & Fitness
I’m usually fairly healthy and I used to take yoga classes in college and I really miss them. For me it wasn’t about restriction or dieting. It has always been about incorporating things to make me feel healthy. For instance, walking my dog and pushing myself a little bit further. By walking more and increasing my steps daily to just playing a game of Basketball with my little brother.
Let me know what you guys think in the comments below and if this blog post was useful.
