Welcome back!
You already know that you should have a clear goal and a clear path to your goal (i.e., a plan). However, in order to keep your motivation high, you also need to choose smaller (measurable) goals or milestones.
Here’s why…
Let’s suppose your goal will take a year or more to complete. Naturally, you’ll start out with a lot of enthusiasm. A couple months into your goal, however, the enthusiasm will fade. By the time you’re about halfway to your goal, you may start losing sight of why you’re even doing it. You’ll feel like you’re doing a lot of work but not seeing much of a return.
That’s why you need to create mini goals and milestones that you can celebrate. Doing so gives you a reason to help moving forward. It shows that you’re making progress. And every time you achieve one of your mini goals, you’ll get a renewed burst of motivation and enthusiasm.
The key, however, is to choose the right kinds of goals. Here’s how:
- Create goals that are on the path to your larger goal. Make sure that your mini goals are actually part of your larger goals. For example, if your goal is to create a successful online business, then one of your mini goals might be to build a list of 250 subscribers.
- Select measurable goals. Both your large goals and your measurable goals should be specific and measurable. For example, your mini goal shouldn’t be something like, “I want to make money by [date] with my blog.” That’s vague. Even one penny would qualify, though making a cent probably wouldn’t make you feel like celebrating.
Instead, be specific, such as “My goal is to make $100 with my blog by [date].”
- Choose goals that you can accomplish in the near future. Ideally, you should choose goals that will take you about one month to accomplish. If you’re feeling a little low on the motivation, then choose goals that will arrive even sooner, such as within two weeks.
- Challenge yourself. Not every goal you create needs to be a grueling challenge. However, every once in a while you should create mini goals that will challenge you and force you to step outside your comfort zone. For example, if you’re thinking about creating a goal to make your first $100 with your blog, challenge yourself by aiming to make $200 instead.
When you meet these mini goals, you’ll feel more motivated than ever.
- Celebrate meeting your goals. When you choose a challenging goal, your self-satisfaction with achieving the goal will likely be enough of a reward. However, for other goals you may want to reward yourself. For example, you can promise yourself and your family a night out on the town when you meet a particular goal. Just make sure the reward is sufficiently rewarding enough to keep you motivated.
That’s it for this time. Next time you’ll discover how the way you view a perceived failure can have an impact on your motivation and productivity. Stay tuned!