Today I am sitting in a Starbucks in Sundance Square in downtown Fort Worth, TX. While I live really close to Ft Worth, I rarely get over here. This is a wonderful downtown area. There is so much to do here, so many great places to eat, hang out, and listen to live music. I am over here today on a ride with my partner. On her blog she is currently working to visit every courthouse in Texas and get a photo of her bike in front of each one. This just happens to be a place to get one today. And we’re also meeting up with her brother for a beer at our favorite pub, Flying Saucer.
Being here in this part of town today made me think over the theme this week, which is goals, how we always need to be working towards them and how most of us are not thinking about goals this time of year. We are thinking about summer, vacation, time off to hang out with family. We are thinking we will get back to the goal thing when the kids get back into school.
Well let’s think back to the beginning of the year. How did you set your goals? Did you break down your goals to get them done at different times of the year? Did you plan for working on them until you could take a vacation? Did you plan for the vacation? These are the things I want to cover today.
When we plan our goals each year are we accounting for all the aspects of our lives in our goals? See, as part of life we need to plan time to take away from all the rush and enjoy life. By breaking down your primary goal into smaller goals, you can set your year up to work hard for a while then take time off. Imagine if you were to set your goals so you could accomplish more when you work and still take time off to enjoy a long vacation.
So, if you have set your goals and are not reaching them, or you have not even started on them, now would be the time to reset (or set) your goals. After all, you will miss goals in your life, and if you have not even started on some of the things in this year or if you’re way behind where you thought you would be on your goals, resetting them or making a new list is the best thing to do. Maybe you should set goals by the quarters, maybe by the month, or even break them down per week.
Many years ago, I knew an auto mechanic who planned his life out. He had an older model, small pickup and it was paid for. He owned his tools and when he needed new tools he was able to pay cash. He worked with the same dealership for close to 15 years so he would get a one-month vacation each year. He planned his life out to take that vacation in December each year. He had paid for his small home before he met his wife. While most guys would come to work and then head home to watch TV, John planned his world out – all while loving the fact he was just an auto mechanic at a car dealer.
I tell this story because he was always able to do more in life then many others who would work extra jobs to pay for their toys. In the same dealership other mechanics would leave to open their own shops then return to work at the dealer two years later when it failed. John also owned several other small businesses as he worked towards his goals. When they did not work out or if he failed, he just reset the goals mid-stream and worked at them again.
What should you do? Take some time this week to review what your goals are for the year. Did you want to start that hobby of building a wooden boat? Did you want to go back to school or take a trip? Did you want to remodel your home? Maybe you wanted to repaint your home? Maybe you wanted to clean out the garage. Well how far have you gotten? Now is the time to decide “I’m going to reach for my goals.”
If you feel you are behind on reaching goals, then reset them. Look at what you really can do, and set them to be realistic. In my very first blog, which I posted in April of 2010, I said take just 30 minutes right now and work on what you have to do. Even though 30 minutes may seem like much, by focusing even small amounts of time on a project, you can accomplish far more than working to do 3 or 4 things at the same time.
So write your goals down for the rest of the year. It’s not too late to reset them. You may find you can accomplish more in six months than you have in one year’s time in previous years.
I’m Tim Gillette, the Rocker Life Coach. It’s time for you to live the life you always wanted, love what you do and reach the goal of being a RockStar where you are in your world.
