HOW TO SET AND ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS

Do you struggle with setting and achieving goals, especially when it comes to the weekly and daily calendars you find at the stationary store? If you’re a creative person like me, you might find a hybrid system works better for you – that is, a combination of digital and analog. When it comes to your goals and dreams, it”s definitely worth the time and effort to experiment, try some different ideas and find the system that works best for you.

Setting goals can be a touchy subject. For a few years, I actually gave up on goal-setting to go with the flow, since every time I set a goal, it seemed the opposite would happen. I figured, ‘Why even try if I’m just going to fail again?’

What I didn’t know was that goal-setting is only as complicated as we make it. There are a lot of tools out there to help you get you reach your goals like calendars, planners and project managers, but the best motivator is knowing your why, that is, why you want to reach that goal and how it will make you feel when you’ve accomplished it.

For that reason, goals and the tools you use to reach them are highly personal. No one system works for everyone, every time. You may even find that tools that worked in the past for you don’t work now (or vice versa), so you find yourself constantly tweaking your system (or giving up altogether and thinking you’re just not a goal-person).

Neurological studies have shown that writing down your goals increases your chance of achieving them due to the brain “encoding” the information more efficiently. So in reality, all you need is a pen and paper to write down your goals and review them daily or as often as possible.

Over the years, I’ve used seemingly every type of calendar and planning tool, both digital and analog, and finally found “planner peace” with a Midori Travelers Notebook two years ago. There is a cult following around this trend, and tons of videos on YouTube illustrating the many ways you can use them, but what I love most about them is the ability to personalize your own system. This is just one tool of many that works well for creative entrepreneurs, while still keeping your goal-setting system simple and streamlined. In this video, I talk about this and some other tips that I hope you find helpful in setting and achieving your goals.

What are you using for planning and goal-setting and is it working for you?