Planning and achieving goals – My tips!

Hey Everyone!!

Welcome to another beautiful January day. So today I got up and reviewed my current month’s progress and simply prepared myself for the upcoming month. While this process, I thought of sharing my ways of doing it, if I might be of some help to anyone!

Planning, indeed, is a very essential criterion to keep track of your progress. It’s good to have a road-map and see yourself where you want to reach. I understand everyone has their own philosophy and approach towards the same and I completely respect it. I simply want to share my approach and what I like to do and help anyone who is in need of it.

So I shared a post earlier about New year resolutions where I stressed upon the importance of making goals and addition in your lists whenever you have pulled up your socks for it. This post is all about the way forward! This kind of process was never in my system but I gradually developed, improved and I am still improvising upon the way I function.

To begin with, I ensure I have all of the below:

A Calendar– be it on phone/organizer- so that you can recollect your important dates, meetings, weekends, major events.
A personal organizer– to pen down all the tasks, reminders
A pen [of course!!] – usually I use Blue to list out everything and cross the completed tasks with Red. I also highlight major tasks in Green. (Suggestion- a lot of boredom is killed by color co-ordination)

A New Year is absolutely one great time to think upon and set deadlines for your goals and yourself to achieve what you want.

Point Number 1- Have vision:-

The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.
– Helen Keller

 

Have vision of where you really want to go or where do you want to see yourself in next 4-5 years. I know everyone does not have an exact idea and it’s scary to realize that one has none (I was at that place too!!). But once you simply start thinking about it, you will recognize what you want professionally, personally and for your peace of mind as well.

Point Number 2- Make goals for yourself to work upon

Once you have a vision, try categorizing the steps needed to achieve it. Make small step by step goals and set realistic deadlines for each goal. I want to talk about 2 things here.
First, all goals should not be incorporated in one year span according to your vision. Remember it takes time!!
Second, deadlines are crucial to set with each goal you want to achieve, as these challenge you and do not let you procrastinate your efforts.

Point number 3- Plan small step by step road-map to achieve your goals

Now you have vision and your goals with set deadlines, now break it into smaller bits. Break your to do tasks into months and days. Plan small baby steps to accomplish initial start of your goals.

For example, there is an industry oriented internship program you need to undergo in summer of 2018.
Plan your January to categorize the industries you want to apply (Further break it down into weeks tasks by researching about specific industries and coming to decision on a date already in mind).
Plan your February with your applications and resume that you need to perfect for particular industries (Further break it down into weeks where each week you devote to search for networks that can help you better with reviews and tactics to crack the internship program. And so on.

Trust me this helps!

I am no way near to a perfectionist, but I really feel that this process has helped me so much to identify my potential and how much I am capable of accomplishing once I plan!

Point number 4- To do list for next day/ Bullet tasks-

This is my personal mantra of sleeping relaxed once I know that I have organized my next day’s to do list. When you have your personal targets and goals broken down into months and weeks, you automatically have a mindset and so you can easily plan your days around it. (So, my day actually starts a night earlier with my to do list/ appointments/ events for the next day.) Once I wake up in morning, I re-read my plan for the day, just to revise in my mind and simply go with the flow as the day passes.

Another thing I want to mention here is to Prioritize!

While putting so many efforts in accomplishing your goals, it is essential you prioritize what needs your attention first. If there are certain tasks that need prompt action and others that can wait, then you definitely need to prioritize among these tasks to become a good time manager and decision maker.

Point number 5- Review your month’s progress and re-plan next one

This is the most important point out of all. Once you have your vision, goals, plan and to do lists on the paper before you, the most important thing at the end of the process is self analysis. You need to analyze what you planned for yourself for a particular month and what all you have accomplished, postponed, subtracted and added on your list. This self analysis prepares you really well and you can always re-plan and update your goals for the next month accordingly. Self analysis is the only step which will ensure you achieve your goals at all times.

I hope this helps you in some way and I wish you good luck with your dreams and goals.

I would love to know some of your methods of planning and achieving goals in comments below. Also let me know in comments if you wish to see my planner and how I work it through.