Setting Goals - Fuel the Fire to Act!
Unlike S.M.A.R.T. Goals, the aim here is motivation and energy generation, NOT planning.
The exercises about 3 key question and setting SMART goals gave us clarity about what our goals are, and why we want to achieve them, as well as setting realistic expectations about how much work it will take to achieve them. (whatever it takes!).
Now…how do we stay motivated?
The following practice is one of the best for creating and sustaining energy needed to actually DO whatever it takes to reach your goals. Our day to day action on the way to our dreams can be boring – you’ll need to get and stay motivated to get to your goals.
Throw out everything you have learned about goal setting before today, just for a moment, because most of those focus on planning to achieve things. The outcome here is not a gameplan (you have that, and there are lots of ways to do that..SMART, etc). The outcome here is energy and excitement…so we are going BIG. Write down big goals and dreams, and let the excitement of dreaming fill your tank! (Billionaire! Vacation home in Mexico! Retire 10yrs early! etc.)
If your brain doesn’t start nay-saying you, telling you these are too big and unrealistic, you aren’t going big enough! 10x your dreams and goals until they start to become exciting and even scary – goals so big they scare you will also serve to motivate you.
The fact is without taking daily action you won’t achieve your carefully planned SMART goals, no matter how well you logically understand why you want to achieve them. Logic isn’t a very effective motivator, so you need to find a way to tap into something deeper, and bigger, to fuel your inner fire and jump out of bed ready to take sometimes mundane actions, and keep going in the face of daunting obstacles.
The following worksheet is designed to help fuel your dreams, but don’t stop there! Feed your dreams with motivational videos, podcasts, books, trainings, and people! Workout daily to improve your mindset and prove to yourself you can do hard things! If you aren’t feeling motivated to act toward your goals, that is your cue that you need to SEEK out fuel for your motivation. Don’t accept feeling unmotivated as a personality trait – go find out how to motivate yourself and repeat it daily!!
Take the worksheet below, and commit to filling it out once a day, every day, for 30 days. See what it does for your energy and excitement towards your goals and towards your life in general. You can use a regular journal once you get the hang of the questions. If this practice works, keep it! It if doesn’t, throw it out…but whatever you do, don’t give up on finding a way to fuel your motivational fire to act – every damn day!
