Author/Guest Blogger: Katy Rothschild – SmithWorthConsulting.com
Whether your goals are business related or personal, one thing is true: consistency is key. It’s also one of the main challenges people face when it comes to accomplishing their goals. We’ve compiled the best tips to help you stay consistent and achieve your goals.
Write a Plan
Writing down a plan to achieve your goals is a way to hold yourself accountable. It’s a way to put your thoughts into action. If you have a written plan for how to achieve your goals, you’re more likely to follow through with them. Think about it like this. If you know you need to get from point A to point B, which is easier and quicker? Having a map to guide you? Or driving around blindly hoping you’ll get to your destination? Think of your written plans as a map or guide to achieving your goal.
You can write down steps you will take each day (or each week) in your planner. Make sure these steps are small and realistic enough to be attained. When you set unrealistic expectations, it can leave you with a blow to your confidence when you don’t achieve them. Remember, small consistent steps lead to success.
Remember Your Why
When you’re having a difficult time, remember why you set out to accomplish your goals and write it down. Keep it in a place that can easily be referenced and you can see often. Sometimes we’ll put a sticky note on our laptop, or write it in our planner for the week. We’ve even written on our mirror so we can see it every morning. Find the place where you will look frequently and write down your why there. When your goal progress seems like it’s stagnant or you’re not making headway as quickly as you would like, it can be incredibly discouraging. This strategy can help you stay motivated when things get difficult.
Focus on Your Progress
“Strive for progress, not perfection.” This is one of our all-time favorite quotes, and in all honesty, is much easier said than done. (Anyone else a recovering perfectionist?) It’s easy to look at our end goal and see how far away from it we are or how messy the process can be. But, the most important thing to remember is to focus on making progress. In business, and in life, there will be plenty of bumps in the road along the way. That’s okay. It is critical is for us to keep pushing forward. If we are staying so focused on how imperfect things are, then our time is wasted. Imperfection is inevitable. Stop trying to prevent it. Now, is that to say we shouldn’t do our best and give it our all? NO. Absolutely not. We should be devoting our best selves to achieving our goals. And we can do that by spending our time taking those small, consistent steps that will move the needle forward and get us to where we need to be.
Find an Accountability Partner
Having someone you can confide in but also hold you accountable is invaluable. We can’t recommend accountability partners enough! We use accountability partners in a couple of different ways.
Commit to Accomplishing Tasks/Goals
We will have a brief phone call or text with our accountability partner where we will each commit to a small goal or a task. This goal or task is often something we find difficult to accomplish (usually due to procrastination). Before we end the call, set a time frame of when we will do it, and a meeting time to check in. This meeting time can be used to check progress, but it is typically to see if we’ve completed the task. Setting the deadline is the driving force behind accomplishing the task. If we don’t accomplish it, not only are we letting ourselves down, but we are also letting down our partner.
Scheduling a Quiet Video Call to Work on Action Items
Sometimes when we are finding things to be increasingly difficult to accomplish, we’ll schedule a video call with our partner. During the video call, we will make our commitments at the beginning, then work on the action items at hand in silence (or on mute). We will have frequent check ins at certain intervals (45 minutes or so) throughout to track our progress. If a video call isn’t feasible for you, try scheduling a phone call instead.
By using the tips listed above, you can greatly improve your ability to be consistent. These are all tried and true tricks that have done wonders for us in the past (and still to this day). Give them a try and see how much of a difference it makes for you and your success.