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I have always been a high achiever
Straight A student in high school and a 3.9 GPA student in college (I am not good at history!)
I was the best teen volunteer at a zoo where I worked and I paid for dance classes with time
I was used to setting goals and then crushing them
Then I became a mom
I stopped having hours to hyper-focus on my goals
But you can still achieve goals as a busy mom!
Here are my top 11 steps and tips for achieving goals as a busy mom
- Write down what a day would look like when you reach the goal
- Break that goal into at least 4 smaller goals
- Realistically decide how much time you can invest in your goal
- Research what it will take to reach each mini goal
- Use that research to break smaller goals into mini goals
- Block out non-negotiable time to work on those mini goals
- Use your work method to stay on track
- Set rewards for accomplishing mini goals
- Hype yourself up every day and talk about goals in the present tense
- Be willing to pivot when things don’t go right
- Focus on the positives more than the negatives
Most of these should be done step-by-step but read them all before getting started to avoid frustration when going through them
Write down what a day would look like when you reach the goal
The first thing you need to achieve your goals is to have a clear understanding of what those goals are
If you don’t know where you are going, it will be hard to make a plan to get there
When I do this step, I treat it like a journal entry
I write down what a day would look like when I reach that goal
I write it in the present tense like it has already happened
Imagine what you will do, what you will eat, what you will think, etc
Not only will this make your goal crystal clear and real, but it will also be motivation when things get hard later
You are also way more likely to achieve a goal if you write it down
Break that goal into at least 4 smaller goals
Once you have the big goal, break it into several smaller goals
I shoot for at least 4 smaller goals
For example, my goal is to reach $4,000 a month from my businesses
I can break that into 4 parts ($1000, $2000, $3000, and then $4000 a month) or I can break it into 8 parts ($500, $1000, $1500, etc)
If you want to start meal planning every dinner of the week, you can break that into 4 parts (once per week, three times per week, etc)
This makes the goals feel less overwhelming and scary
And that reduces procrastination and discouragement
Realistically decide how much time you can invest in your goal
If you are like me, your goals are big and your time to invest in those goals is very limited
Some days my kids are feeling very independent and just want to play
On other days I am lucky to get 5 minutes at a time to myself
So what I did was decide how much time every day I can invest, even if I have to do it all after the kids go to bed
My time was between 1 and 2 hours a day
1 hour every night before bed and 1 hour spread out throughout the day
By making realistic expectations on how much time you can invest, you can better decide what the best uses of that time will be in the next two steps
Research what it will take to reach each mini goal
Now you need a list of things that will get you to your goals
There will always be multiples paths to success
My problem is that I try to do too much
Choose one path to your goals and go all in
What do you need to do every day to reach those goals?
How long will each task take
Can you do those tasks in the time you decided on during the last step?
Can you adjust when you do things so you still follow that path with the time you have?
Ask yourself these questions now and figure out what is most important
20% of your efforts will do 80% of your progress
Find what tasks fall into that 20% category and prioritize them
You can add things from the 80% category based on the time you have available
Use that research to break smaller goals into mini goals
Now that you know what you need to do in order to reach your goals, now it is time to make mini goals
These are my daily or weekly goals
They are more action based instead of based on things you can’t directly control
I can’t control when I make $500 a month with my business, but I can control how many blog articles I write
Make sure your mini goals are things that you can control but they will move you towards your smaller goals and your big goal
Block out non-negotiable time to work on those mini goals
You know how much time you will have a day for your goals, now decide when your work time will be
During the day, I don’t have non-negotiable time because my kids’ needs come first
I try my best to get about an hour in broken up throughout the day
Sometimes I do more and sometimes I do less
My non-negotiable time is when the kids are asleep and my husband is playing video games for the night
I spend an hour between 9 and 10 PM every night working on my goal
Use your work method to stay on track
Some people are most encouraged to stay on track with accountability
Others like to check things off a list
I am the second
But I do like public challenges
Figure out what motivates you
Maybe you need a motivational speech every day
Whatever works best for you, do that
Set rewards for accomplishing mini goals
Rewards can be helpful in a few ways
We naturally do better with goals with more instant gratification
Long-term goals are a lot harder to focus on
I like to give myself some kind of reward for achieving my mini-goals and small goals
This doesn’t have to be food
It could be a movie date or getting your nails done
Whatever gets you excited to get when you put in the work
Hype yourself up every day and talk about goals in the present tense
The more you talk to yourself about your goals and write them down, the easier it will be to reach them
Hype yourself up and make it a big deal!
The more important your brain decides your goal are, the easier it will be to work toward and accomplish them
Be willing to pivot when things don’t go right
This is a big one as a mom
Be willing to adjust the plan when things don’t go right
Something will happen
Your child gets sick or the actions that you researched are not working for you
Be ready and willing to pivot
Be stubborn in your goals but flexible on how you get there
Just don’t give up on the action steps too early
Good things take time
Focus on the positives more than the negatives
My brain likes to focus on all the things I did badly throughout the day
It has been a challenge to change that
But if you always focus on the bad, you won’t notice the good
And we don’t want to live like that
My rule is that for every bad thing I think about for the day, I need to think of two good things that happened
This teaches my brain to search for the good in everyday