Why do I need goals?

If you don’t write your goals down then your goal is not actually a goal, it’s just a dream.

While it’s good to dream, and yes sometimes dreams become reality, it’s better to set goals in writing so that you can reach that dream quicker.

Rule #1:  Write Down Your Goal

So many people talk about their goals. And they talk, and they talk, and they talk.

You know what I’ve found? When I ONLY talk about my goals, I don’t treat them as real goals.

If it’s something I only talk about then it’s merely just something that I would like to happen, but not something that I am taking action to make happen.

Make sense?

My husband and I love to write all of our goals or ideas down on our huge white board that we call “The Big Idea Board”.

3 Reasons We Love to Write Down our Goals 

1. You will be forced to clarify what it is that you really want.

Have you ever set out on a trip to the grocery store with no grocery list? You don’t have a meal plan for the week and you have no idea what ingredients you need. In your head your thinking about all the things you would like to make, but you never wrote them down.

I do this all the time.

You know what happens, by Wednesday evening I am so frustrated that I don’t have what I need to cook dinner that 9 times out of 10 I throw a frozen meal in the microwave. Think about how much easier it would be to write down your meal plan for the week and take a list of the ingredients that you need to the store so that when dinner time comes…you aren’t wondering what the heck you will feed your family.

And trust me, fish sticks and mac n cheese may cut it for the kiddos, but I promise you, the husband may divorce you if you make him eat that 5 nights a week.

Your goals are the same.

Writing them down forces you to be specific in what you want.

2.  It will motivate you to take action.

We keep our goals written on our white board in our office. Every day I read them and I asked myself, “What can I do today to take steps to accomplish a goal?”

We write down big AND small goals. Some of our goals include content strategies for the blogs we run.

• What posts would I like to write this week?
• What videos are next on my list to film?
• Which videos need to be edited?

Sometimes goals can look like to-do lists and that’s ok. I have new goals each week and I also have goals that have been on the board since day 1.

Whenever I feel like I am distracted or I don’t know which direction to go next, I refer back to my “Big Idea Board” and it will motivate me to work towards a goal that I have listed.

In fact, this blog post idea has been on my goal list for 2 weeks. If I wouldn’t have written it down I probably would have forgotten about it by now and would have never written it.

3. It will create a chance for you to celebrate your accomplishments.

Hard work doesn’t come without reward, right? Have you ever felt like you just keep working your booty off and your going nowhere?

There will always be someone out there better than you, another blogger with more readers than you, someone who has more sponsors, someone who is better on video, someone who makes more money.

If you constantly compare yourself to these people instead of comparing your progress to the goals you set out to accomplish, you will never succeed.

Writing down your goals allows you to SEE the milestones that you are hitting and it allows you to pat yourself on the back when you start accomplishing them.

So I’m curious, how do you accomplish your goals…big and small? Do you write them down? If not, I encourage you to start.