“If a goal is worth having, it’s worth blocking out the time in your day-to-day life necessary to achieving it.”
Jill Koenig
When you’re thinking about your goals and creating goals for yourself, some things you may want to consider:
- How do you know your goal is worth having or worth reaching?
- What are the benefits of reaching your goals?
First, let’s look at the emotional side and the practical side to reaching goals. Some of the emotions you may experience are feelings of pride, accomplishment, fulfillment and feeling motivated to do more.
Some of the elements to the practical side of reaching your goals may be that you can cross items off of your list, feel like you’re moving forward in life and you see your personal or business life changing for the better.
These are all good things!
Now let’s go back to my original two questions. How do you know if you’re goal is worth reaching and what are the benefits to reaching your goals? To figure that out, I think you have to be intentional about examining the benefits of reaching your goals. When you know how you will benefit, it will help keep you motivated when things get tough. Reaching our goals usually doesn’t happen in a straight line as it usually comes with ups, downs, starts, stops and struggles. When you analyze the benefits, it can help you decide whether it or not it’s going to be worth your time, energy and effort to pursue the goal. This can help you reaffirm your goal or help you change course.
Here’s a simple example with the goal being to have an organized kitchen. Currenly, the kitchen has cluttered counters and not enough room to prep food, the pantry is stuffed so there’s expired food in the back and it’s frustrating to find anything.
The benefits of organizing the kitchen are that it’s visually appealing to enter the room, less stressful working in the kitchen, you can work easily in the space and you can find what you need quickly. It will be easier and more pleasant to host gatherings and you’ll save money when you use what you have verus wasting money from food expiring at the back of the pantry or fridge.
You’ve gone from a goal of “organizing the kitchen” to the reasons why it will be of great benefit for you to organize the kitchen. If organizing the kitchen is something you don’t enjoy doing, knowing the benefits will help you stick to your project and see light at the end of the tunnel.
If you’re working on a long-term goal, keep your eyes on the prize when it comes to the benefits of reaching your goals. Consider posting pictures of your desired outcome on a vision board, your computer desk top or on the bathroom mirror. Switch up the pictures from time-to-time to keep it fresh so you don’t start to tune it out. Another option is to utilize postive sayings, memes, mantras or journaling to keep yourself inspired.
It’s going to take effort on your end, but as Theodore Roosevelt said, “Nothing worth having is ever achieved without effort.”
