Creating Actionable Goals in 2018

I’ve heard many saying this week, “I’m done with resolutions.”

That 2018 is the “Year of Intention.”

No goals. No personal development. No plan.

Intention is the compass now.

What about you? Did you denounce resolutions this year?

I get it. Take good care of yourself. It’s essential. Yes.

But, how do you get from point A to point B, without a plan, without taking action?

The definition of resolution says, “a firm decision to do or not to do something.”

To do. To take action. Or not.

IF your committed to personal growth and development, for you and your life,

• With your health
• With your relationships,
• Or even with your time-management,

It’s irrefutable, getting there is going to require more than intention.

Change requires you take new actions.

I myself have an arms-length of goals I want to achieve this year, from building “my strongest body ever,” to delivering a TED Talk, to even writing a book.

Intention alone would never get me the results I want.

Creating Actionable Goals in 2018

At the kickoff call for my 1:1 coaching program, Your Best Health Project, and as the kickoff for this year long blog series, I, ask one starting question:

What do you want to get out of this program?

Or, more specifically, what are the goals you most want to achieve while we work together?

And then we set the stage of every action you will take to achieve your goals.

Intention matters. You set one in our first session. It guides the program, but actions get you to your end game.

Simply put, intention is not enough.

Without taking new actions, you can’t create change.

I ask you, WHAT top 3-5 goals would you most love to achieve in your health and wellness this year?

As an example, you might say, I want to lose weight.

But “I want to lose weight” is elusive. It’s not specific enough. To achieve any goal, it has to be smart, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.

If weight-loss is your goal, you want to pick a specific number of pounds you want to lose, and you want to calculate how much weigh you’ll lose each week, each month, to get to your goal weight. Then you want to be realistic for the 6-month period of time we’d work together — you don’t want to set an unrealistic expectation and set yourself up for failure.

OK, let’s break it down:

Over a 6-month period, if you want to lose 30 pounds, divide 30 (the pounds you want to lose) by 24 weeks (the 6 months of working together) and you’d easily see that you need to lose .8 pounds per week to get to your goal weight.

But this is only one example, and the math makes it easy to measure.

But let’s say your goal is something more intangible, like you want more energy.

Then you’d choose specific actions that would increase your energy in a very measurable way.

For example, one of my overall top recommendations with every client is, The Math Equation, where I recommend clients take out foods that cause inflammation in the body (which inherently deplete energy reserves) and add in The Wholly Trinity, or greens 3-ways, a green juice, a green smoothie and a meal-sized green salad every day that will naturally increase energy because every ingredient is oxygen heavy (which increases energy).

• HINT — Choose ONE goal, or new habit that you KNOW could make every other action easier. For example, you might choose getting up 30 minutes earlier in the morning, so you can journal and meditate before others in your family wake up. Or, you might choose preparing smoothies and lunches at nighttime, like my client Courtney does, to make mornings more smooth and easy with her family.

Creating Your Goal Plan

Whatever your goal, you can, and you must:

1. Write your goals down. If you write them down, you put them into existence — they become a real target, rather than simply wishful thinking.
2. Choose specific actions that you can measure in very solid ways, and they must be realistic for the time window you choose to achieve them.
3. Publicly declare your goal, and the actions you’re going to take to achieve it.
4. Create accountability with another person, like a coach or an accountability partner.

Research shows that if you write down your goals, share them with a friend, and create accountability with a coach or accountability partner, you will exponentially reap higher results.

Your turn. Your time.

If you know you struggle with accountability (just look back at your 2016 and 2017 resolutions!) and are ready to create the results you want now, by working with me, click here to schedule a free discovery call to see what’s possible.

Or, if you just need a safe space to declare your goals – post in the comments below! Then bookmark this page and come back to stay on track, I’ll support you every step of the way!