Goals and Achievements

Our lives are a series of goals and achievements. Some people are far more set on their goals – they have clear direction, a plan and a time line to achieve them. Some others are a little more laid back but still have goals nonetheless. Even if you don’t recognise the small goals you have, I guarantee you have at least one each day without even realising. Do the grocery shopping, see Kate for coffee, post the card to Nan… each day is made up of several small goals. Which means each day is also made up of several small achievements.

Unfortunately, a lot of us focus on the things we didn’t get done or didn’t achieve. We don’t give ourselves enough praise for what we do achieve. I am guilty of this and a little too often. We also don’t recognise our goals, I mean actually list them as being a goal. How much better would you feel if you ticked off a list of things to do in a day and looked at that list realising what you had achieved, versus just going about your daily tasks without marking them as achievements?

So this is where we come to one of my favourite things. Lists!! As I have mentioned previously, I love lists. I even love having a list of lists I need to write. They make me feel like I am organised, like I have direction and I know what I need to have done by when, as well as helping me to not feel like I have forgotten something all the time. One of my staple lists is a daily To Do List which can include everyday tasks such as sweeping the floor, doing the groceries or cooking dinner, or even fun things like catch up with Grace for coffee, research a new camper trailer to buy (yes please) or most importantly, take 30 minutes out to relax. Lists help keep us organised and help us plan our time effectively.

Daily lists can help us with our smaller goals and achievements, but what do you do when you have a big goal in mind?

For me personally I take a big goal I have, then break it up into smaller goals to achieve, and give myself a time frame. For example, one of our goals is to buy a new camper trailer for ourselves. While I would love to go out tomorrow and buy one I know this isn't the best option overall, so I have broken it into smaller pieces so my goal feels more achievable. It is quite a simple example and it looks a little something like this:

Goal

 To buy our 'perfect enough for us' camper trailer

Time Frame

6 months

Budget

 x amount of $$

How To

• -      Research camper trailers and create list of what we definitely want in, what we would like in but are willing to negotiate on, and what we absolutely do not want.
• -      From this, create a budget of what we are willing to spend
• -      Using our existing fortnightly budget, agree with Steve as to how much from our ‘savings’ we would like to redistribute to our ‘camper trailer’ fund.
• -       From this, work out a time frame to achieve.
• -       Bonus mini goal – attempt to obtain 1 overtime shift per month in order to save for camper trailer faster. 

As I mentioned, this is a pretty simple example but this is how I set out all of my larger goals. Sometimes when we look at the big picture it can be overwhelming, so much to do and in such a short time. This breaks things down into smaller goals, which means as you tick them off you also have small achievements along the way. I have even used this template for how I want to set up and run this blog and what I want to achieve with it.

So in a nutshell:

• -      Give yourself a daily ‘To Do’ list so each day you can see your goals and achievements
• -      Praise yourself for what you achieved each day
• -      For larger goals, set out a plan – give yourself clear direction, a time frame and a ‘how to’
• -      Break your large goals into smaller, bite sized pieces so you can see yourself moving forward towards your goal with smaller achievements.
• -      Again – give yourself praise for what you achieved.

So what are some of your goals and how are you working towards them? Do you think this template could help you achieve your goals sooner?

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I wish I could do it better....

WE HAVE MOVED

You can now find this post at

http://www.perfectenoughforus.com/2014/11/i-wish-i-could-do-it-better.html

What’s one thing you wish you could do better that would make your life easier? Just one small, simple thing that if done regularly would make things easier. Do you wish you could meal plan, or perhaps stick to a budget, or maybe you need to be able to leave work at work? For me its organisation. I have the basics down pat, I can write a list (or 10 lists including a list of lists to write – I love lists!!) I can get the washing done and getting Alexander ready of a morning, when I am running late or have a million things to do I am incredibly organised. It’s when I get those few moments of quiet time – when Alexander is having his nap, or when he has gone to bed, or down time at work, that’s when I fall apart.

Take this morning for example – Alexander woke up at 4:30am and was crying out for Mummy, I went into his room and reminded him that it was too early to get up and he needed to go back to sleep (amazingly he actual laid back down and didn’t complain). After this I was wide awake – I climbed back into bed though thinking I’d try and get a little more sleep – my mind was racing so I picked up my phone… one hour later I realised I had done absolutely nothing productive and had just read Facebook posts of various groups I was in. One hour – in one hour I could have had my morning chores done, cooked breakfast for the family, done a work out or morning Yoga, checked emails and responded, written more lists (including one for our upcoming camping trip), started packing for the aforementioned camping trip… the possibilities are endless! But instead I stalked Facebook. It’s times like this that I am glad that my Facebook account is used purely for groups I am in (my mother’s group for July 2013 is amazing!!) and not for personal friends and family. These are the times that frustrate me. My brother has a tattoo of a quote on his foot that says ‘Anything lost can be found again, except for time wasted.’

 There’s so much I want to get done, and plan to get done, however sometimes the lure of half an hour of uninterrupted me time, relaxing on the lounge, or shamelessly stalking Facebook, is just too hard to pass up (actually there’s a lot of shame to the amount of time wasted on Facebook). Now, I am not saying we need to fill every second of every day, down time is important especially for us Mumma’s. My biggest problem is that my half hour down time quickly turns into two hours of watching TV (hello Ellen and TMZ) and Facebook stalking people who offer no motivation, benefit or enlightenment to my life. So here’s my pledge:

I WILL schedule in down time for myself.

I WILL set a half hour timer and stick to it.

I WILL NOT feel guilty if I spend that entire half hour sitting on my lounge eating the block of chocolate I’ve had to hide from Steve (seriously, I have to hide it or he will eat it all).

I WILL make a list each day of all the things I wish to achieve during the down time I do have.

Schedule in some 'me' time...

So, after feeling ridiculously guilty for ‘wasting’ an hour this morning, I climbed out of bed, made myself a lovely cup of coffee, said good morning to the dog and sat down to write this post and have already finished my list for the day. Definitely feeling more organised and productive already. 

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