Goal Setting 101: Part 3/3 - Long term habits

Welcome back to this 3-part Goal-Setting series! You're here for part 3, yay! If you're just getting started, make sure you head over to the first parts of this blog series in the planner section of my blog: 

Re-examine. 

Go through the goal-setting exercises I talked about in the first blogs every couple of months. Instead of just "falling off the wagon" with a goal, officially take it off your list if it's no longer super important to you.

And give yourself time. It takes a long time to create strong habits. Don't be in a rush. Add more one by one, slowly. I keep saying this, but this resonates with me so well: Give yourself some grace! It's so important to not be too hard on yourself. Give yourself time to rest, recover and heal. Give yourself some grace!

Keep going. 

Don't fail once and then throw in the towel. I used to think that when you fail, you should immediately throw in the towel. But I have learned that's so not true. You will mess up. And that's ok, pick yourself up and keep moving forward.

For example: some time ago, I set a goal to go to bed with a clean sink (dishes all washed & counters wiped) every night before I went to bed for an entire month. As said previously, I'm using the Clean Mama method (since 2019) to help keep me motivated and track this habit. Day 1 came and, of course, I got my sink all clean before bed and got to check it off. Day 2 came, check. Day 3, check! Somewhere around day 10, I failed... And had a bunch of excuses ready: getting home late, tired from a long day, had a webinar in the evening. I was so so so so disappointed when I had failed that early on. But, I didn't give up, there were still 20 days left, I could totally do it. So guess what, I kept going and going, and now, it's a habit! I put it in my planner every week and month and check it off. I still go to bed most nights with a clean sink because I got that habit down to the core. Along with the other habits/chores, the Clean Mama method has taught me. The most important thing to learn from this little story is to just keep going.  This will help you develop long-term habits.

If you feel overwhelmed by creating a habit and you feel like you're getting in survival mode: you are not alone my friend. We have all been there or are still there.

Another tip is to schedule in more offline time, unplugging and getting back to me has been such a priority on my list lately and I'm loving it. Most evenings I don't go online but spend time with my husband or getting creative. I could scroll mindlessly through whatever for hours on end and was so done with that. Felt like I was wasting my time. Time spend offline can help you in so many ways. It can help you get the best ideas and just feel more grounded too. 

'Done List'.

Write down a list of all the things you do on a regular day. We tend to forget about how much we really are accomplishing. Especially when doing small and/or repetitive tasks (like cleaning, grocery shop, menu plan, and so on). So, by listing everything on a done list, you will see clearly how much you're doing and that particular list will help you with making new daily/weekly/monthly/yearly list and trackers. Plus, isn't it fun to see how much we do?! We rock, right!

Prioritize.

Then pare your habits down to the most important things and put the rest on hold. If you try to keep up with everything at the same time, you will start to feel guilty that you can't keep up or you will fail easier. Try using a habit tracker so you can track and see progress.

Keep it simple.

If you're trying to create 20 complicated habits that you also want to accomplish every day, it probably won't happen. It's too much, that simple. Prioritize the habits that are the most important

Competing goals.

It's super easy to set competing goals like "go to bed by 10 pm" and "wash all the dishes & clean the kitchen before you go to bed". Don't set goals that conflict with each other. If you do want to both of these, for example, make sure one of them is a high priority and schedule it timewise. "Clean the kitchen + dishes at 9 pm" + "go to bed by 10 pm", that way it will be easier to complete both and it will be less stressful that way. 

Letting go.

Seeing you can't focus on everything at once, but it can also be disheartening to stop focusing on a habit you've been working really hard on. That is why I'm saying that it's important to start lettings things go, to focus on one thing at a time instead of having to drop some habits. 

I want to thank you for reading this 3-part Blog series on Goal-Setting! You've made it, YAY YOU!! I loved hearing from you all, about how you work and also hearing how you're loving this series and how it's helping you. So, thank you! For letting me put my thoughts on Goal-Setting down on paper and to maybe inspire you. As a thank you, I'm making a BONUS blog right now! With some tips that have been talked through over this series. Just to sum it up a bit. Feel free to reach out to me on my IG, I love chatting with you guys about things like this! 

*All photos used in this article are stock photos from Shutterstock