Did that get your attention? Because the phrase goal evaluation would probably make your eyes glaze over and a quick click over to YouTube to watch a monkey riding a pig.
Have you ever made a goal and not achieved it? Of course you have! Have you ever sat down and asked yourself why? Uh……What?
People make goals every day. People achieve goals every day. People give up on their goals every day. What separates the achievers with the quitters? It could be one of many things or a combination:
- The goal isn't SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-Driven (skip one of these and you are bound to give up)
- You haven't identified your whines or obstacles.
- You haven't identified your wins or resources to support you.
- You are lazy.
- You never had a plan.
- When you fall off the wagon you stay there…face down on the ground instead of getting right back up.
I'm pretty good at goal-setting because I follow the proper steps. I roll with methods and systems. However, I think the thing that sets me apart from others is that I actually evaluate why I didn't achieve my goals and how I can try again and make it better. When I had a goal of eating more vegetables, I got stuck on three servings a day. I couldn't get past it for some reason. When I went back to evaluate, I realized that I needed to increase my support. Instead of chopping vegetables every day, I started washing, chopping, prepping, roasting etc. on Sundays and Wednesdays. This made it easy for me to throw them in whatever I was fixing. Now I regularly eat 5-9 servings a day but I know when I don't do that Sunday prep time, it will drop.
When I had trouble with the time I spent on social media I looked at the method I was using, which was telling myself that I was only going to spend X amount of time on X website. Well, that didn't work either because the next thing I knew I had five tabs open and was watching a hamster playing a piano, looking at photos of The Kid and responding to a petition to ban GMOs from our food. When I started using a timer and had the bell sound it was a trigger for me to stop, drop (the entire browser) and roll on to real work.
Next time you create a goal and you don't achieve it, evaluate it. Without looking at what stood in your way, you'll never be able to reach your ideal.
Have you created a goal that you didn't achieve? Are you brave enough to say why?
