{Lifestyle} Goals V. Realistic Goals

HELLO LOVELIE PEOPLE OF THE INTERNET- I have not disappeared, no no. I have been busy with working, and the past holiday weekend I flew to see my boyfriend, and it was amazing and was crazy busy and I bought lots of clothes and do-dads (post on what I bought within the next 2-3 days), and I had such a lovely time.

Today's post is about setting goals. I read a quote from Shape Magazine when they interviewed Hilary Duff for the May cover, and she talked about "Keeping it {workout goals, etc} simple, and realistic". And that got to me. I'm sure all of us do this, we set goals on December 31, ready to be a new person the following day on that fresh start of a new year... and how many of us fail those goals? Our fitness, financial, romantic, etc etc etc goals. Or we do it for a month, but don't see results and we quit. I do that with various fitness routines. I often find myself quitting after only a couple weeks because "i didn't see the results I wanted." And when I read that quote it hit me that maybe I am going about setting my goals the wrong way. For example; I want to loose weight, and I would like to loose around 30 pounds. But if I say in 6 months I will have lost those thirty pounds, but in reality at the six month mark I only lost 20, I would be disappointed. So instead of saying 6 months, 30 lbs down, If I go. I will try to loose 5 lbs a month for 6 months. Saying it like that is more motivating, realistic, and you reach the goal date, probably more successful. Breaking a big goal, into smaller more achievable goals is what will help you be successful, and not just in fitness. (* The idea of breaking down larger goals into smaller goals was from Lara Casey's "Make it happen" book, but I didn't really put two and two together, and have it really click until I read the article on Hilary Duff.)

1. Write down CRAZY dreams/ goals- ones that you think are super unattainable, irrational, totally "out of this world" I wrote down a bunch of goals that I thought were crazy and totally out of my league. Ideas that I could almost only dream of doing.

2. Take those crazy goals and come up with similar more realistic goals For example say a dream goal for someone might be having a super fancy big house. And then realistic goal might be to have a comfortable decent sized home. Or to have lots of money, but a realistic goal would be to have  a comfortable amount in the bank to feel secure.

3. Make steps toward realistic goals Write down the goal and list a few steps you can take to reach that goal. So you can use the example from above of setting smaller month to month goals for loosing weight before hitting a 6 month mark, or if you want to start a blog you would break down steps like 1)research what type of blog to create 2) research content ideas for said blog 3) research platforms 4) choose name for blog 5) decide on how to design, pay for it vs. DIY vs. pre-done free etc 6) choose platform, pay for domain name if desired 7) register and create blog ... Etc  Breaking the goal down into easier steps helps get "the ball rolling" so to speak, and you will feel great checking off each step as you do them!

I hope this post was interesting to you all, and I HIGHLY recommend Lara Casey's book, link HERE for it on Amazon. Please let me know what you thought! I appreciate the comments!

XOXO

Kelsey