#14 – Don't Give Up. Achieve Your Goals Without Overwhelm

Hi friends,

Wish you all a fabulous 2022.

It is the new year and a time we like to reset, restart or refresh.  Most of us make resolutions and some of even succeed at achieving those resolutions but what happens most often is that when we sit down with our wish list or our goals list in front of us, we don’t know where to start.

So even before we begin, we are already demotivated.

Instead of moving towards our goals, we have already derailed ourselves with overwhelm and its only January the 3^rd.

The stress of just looking at our goals open on our diaries or on our planner, can be so terrifying that we either give up before trying or get so overwhelmed that we get derailed, distracted, and demotivated.  Sometimes so much that we stop creating goals for ourselves, we stop dreaming, we stop trying, just go with the flow & see if we can get where we want to be.

Now, that’s not what we want. We want to move forward and achieve what we want so we can be where we want to be.

Reaching your goals does not have to be difficult. You have the power to do what you decide. You have the power to unleash your full potential and get to where you want to be without overwhelm. It will take work. If you’re ready to do the work, be ready to set yourself up for success.

After years of failed goals, today, I feel confident to share straightforward and practical practices that have helped me eliminate stress and overwhelm & set the right mindset to achieve goals, not just on a yearly basis but daily.

1. Practice no. 1 — Create a robust plan with bite-sized action items

There is enough information out there on how to set goals, what templates to use and each of us have our own way of documenting how our goals.

Here’s what I do it after writing down all my goals for the year. I pick each goal one at a time.

Let’s say one of my goals is to lose 50 pounds of weight this year. If I just leave it at that, it is daunting. How can I ever reduce 50 pounds? My head begins to spin reading it.

So, I then add a 2^nd layer to this big goal which specifies the action that can help me reduce those 50 pounds. That 2nd layer would say –

• Eat healthy food
• Exercise 5 times a week.

By adding that layer of info, it gets a tad bit easier to process.

Then dig a deeper & add a third layer of information to my plan – the action I need to eat healthy or the action I need to exercise 5 times a week.

To eat healthy food, I break down all the steps I need to eat healthy –

• Eat out once a week
• Buy green leafy vegetables
• Meal plan every Sunday

That makes it easier to process. From reading 50 pounds, I’m now processing bite-sized info, but we can break it down even more, making it even easier for ourselves.

We see which action item is ready to take action on.

• Eating out once a week – no further breakdown required.
• Buy green leafy vegetable – I just need to buy those vegetable every week.
• Meal planning – I would break it down a bit further and list the action I need to take to meal plan. I would add –
  • Check fridge Saturday night,
  • check husband’s schedule Sunday morning (so I know how many meals he might be eating at home)
  • Grocery shopping Sunday afternoon.
  • Cook Sunday evening.

This way I list all the tasks it will take me to meal plan so that I’m able to eat healthy and ultimately lose those extra pounds.

By breaking it down into bite sized action items, I took my daunting goal of 50 pounds down to merely grocery shopping, meal planning and cooking. I also created a weekly schedule by saying what I need to do on Saturday and Sunday & breaking it down to the utmost nitty gritty of that big mammoth of a goal.

This not only gives me a yearly goal but also gives me a weekly action plan so that at the end of the 52 weeks, I can see the result of these small actions I take through the year.

This would work similarly for photography or business goals.

List your main goal, add the first layer of action, then keep adding layers of action that you need to achieve the previous action. Break it down to the utmost detail.  

Breaking it down in the beginning itself takes away the headache of thinking once you’re already activated. Half your load is off already. Now you act. The smaller you can break down your actions, the easier it is.

While I do not spend time making fancy lists, I use an excel file to create my action plan that is broken down to the tiniest detail and I keep going back to that document and checking whether I’m on track, checking off one task at a time. It really feels like I’m moving forward, I’m making progress.

And that’s enough to not make us give up.

If you have only limited time, the one place you should be spending it is in creating a robust action plan with bite-sized items because that plan is your roadmap. If you move with a roadmap, you’ll have direction, move faster, and reach your destination.

2. Practice no. 2 – Prioritize

When you break down your action plan to the tiniest detail, there’s a high chance you’ll be overwhelmed, which is why prioritizing becomes necessary.

You don’t need to do everything at once. It is one small step at a time. So, indicate that on your action plan.

Either colour code the goals in order of priority or put them in descending order, whatever works for you. Do the same for the action items so that you know what you need to do first, second and so forth, making it much easier to process and execute.

And while you do that work of prioritizing, remember to stick to it. Do not get derailed and distracted.

As important as an action plan is, it is equally important to establish priorities of the actions we need to take and constantly check ourselves so we can stay on track working through our plan.

3. Practice no. 3 – Do not Procrastinate

While we prioritize our actions, the third practice that can help tremendously in expediting our PLAN is to not procrastinate.

Do not procrastinate either when it comes to taking action or decisions. When you know you need to make a decision, don’t wait. Taking decisions and actions on time will get you closer to your goals.

We need to Show up no matter what. We need to keep moving forward and even if it is slow, we’re still moving forward. Don’t stop, move slowly, ask for help If you need to, but don’t quit. Don’t leave a decision or an action for later. Give yourself grace when you need it & pick up where you left off.

Half your work is done if you just show up without any bit of procrastination.

To achieve our goals, it is important that we consistently keep working on our action items & every time we think of giving up, we pause, question what’s making us procrastinate, address it & move forward.

The reason we tend to fall off the wagon or procrastinate is because we are either overworked or overwhelmed.

4. Practice no. 4 – Ask for help

One of my biggest struggles last year was the amount of work on my plate. I was creating content for social media, my portfolio, doing commercial shoot and producing my podcast episodes —and I was doing it all by myself.

The result was fatigue & burn out.

I’m not sure you read my Instagram post that I had so much on my plate that I almost passed out on a plate.

One of my goals for this year is to set up a team and delegate so that I can spend my time where I’m most creative, without burning out and I’m able to move towards my goals with a healthier approach, physically and mentally.

If you’re in the same place, seek out a virtual assistant, find creative individuals who can help you off-load some of the work so that you can bring your 100% to the table and not pass out on a table. Ha! 

5. Practice no. 5 – Incentivize your goals

The last practice which is quite critical if you want to hit your goals without giving up is to incentivize your goals.

You need to visualize your reward upon meeting your goals. One reward for every goal. Fun!

If your goal this year is to lose 50lbs, it might seem daunting but if you can visualize what losing those 50 pounds will do for you, then it will encourage & inspire you to ty harder because you know the reward that awaits you, you have an incentive to work on that goal.

That reward could be that you get to wear your little black dress, OR that you might be able to fit into your wedding gown again OR that you could share clothes with your cousin and double your wardrobe OR you could fit into your mom’s old dress.

No matter what the reward, make it attractive enough to make you want to work for that goal.

You do that right in the beginning when you’re working on your action plan. Every time you list a goal, ask yourself what you want to achieve from that goal and what is your purpose of having that goal. This will give you clarity and your incentive will appear in front of you as you answer this tough question.

It will also help you prioritize, and the reward will remove any chance of procrastination or stress or derailment.  It will make your process joyful, inspiring, and fun. 

It will give you something to look forward to whether it’s a personal or professional goal.

CONCLUSION

It is also important to evaluate and check your goals every few months or quarter. We live in such uncertain times that it is important to create check points through the year to make sure what you’re striving for is still relevant.

I’m a huge believer in progress over perfection and if we can work consistently on something, there’s no way we cannot have it, but we must work for it. There’s no substitute to that because honestly, we cannot be frustrated for not achieving something we didn’t work for.

If you have goals for 2022, take a little time to plan, make a roadmap for yourself and act little by little, keeping these practices in mind.

Nothing in the world will be able to stop you either from achieving your goals or from showing up with your 100% potential.

Hope you had a wonderful start to 2022 and hope this helps you reach what you aim for this year, professionally or personally, even if it is fitting into that little black dress, which for sure is mine.