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I grew up with my dad always telling me that thoughts are things.

Thoughts are things. Thoughts are things. I heard it hundreds and hundreds of times, probably since I was young enough to talk.  I thought it was hilarious.  I mean he was telling this to a 10 year old who had no idea what he was talking about.  And then I read The Secret.  And she is saying the exact same thing.  That thoughts are things.  Thoughts are actually physical matter.  They have mass and substance and power. (If you haven’t read it yet, you totally should).

I guess my dad was right (that is REALLY hard to say! – hopefully he doesn’t read this…).

Now, no matter what you believe, there is something to this.  You could believe that thoughts have matter or not. But I’m sure we can agree on one thing:  your thoughts are important.  And I’ll get more into that in a later post, but we can use this same logic when it comes to goal setting.  Because goals are thoughts.  They are STRONG thoughts.  Thoughts of your hopes, dreams, desires.  Everything you want in life usually started off as some sort of thought. And that thought turns into goals, which turn into action, which turns into those thoughts becoming REAL.

But I feel like setting a good goal is harder than most people think.

I hear so many goals that are unrealistic, wishy-washy, unclear.  Goals that have no time limit or too short of a time limit, or goals that have nothing to do with what they really want in their lives.  Goals that are more like hopes and dreams than they are attainable.

How do you know you’ve reached your goal when its not really clear what your goal is in the first place?

I believe that everyone should have dreams.

That its healthy to sometimes have our heads in the clouds and hope for amazingly wonderful outlandish things.  And sometimes people frown upon that or want you to be more sensible, but I say screw that (and them!).  But a dream is just a dream unless you have a plan.  And I believe everyone should be able to attain their dreams.

So I’m going to teach you a 5 crucial aspects of a goal in order for you to be successful at achieving whatever it is that you want to achieve.  This is just the backbone of goal setting, the bare minimum.  I teach goal setting much more in depth in the Push module of my upcoming course, Deserve to Thrive and is Action-Step #3 in my Checklist for BIG CHANGE.

5 ESSENTIAL aspects of a kickass goal that will get you where you want to go:

All you have to remember is the acronym SMART (and you’ve probably heard it before, or pinned a relevant pin on pinterest, but seriously guys, its everywhere for a reason – because it works).  There are tons of variations of what the letters mean and some resonate strongly with different people, but it does provide a clear path to goal-setting success (many of these variations are included in my FREE goal setting workbook).

1. SPECIFIC

A goal has to be specific.  Like I said before, it can’t be wishy-washy, unknown, “I guess I want this really broad thing.” No.  It has to be clear. Unwavering. Stated in simple language that a 12-year old could say, “Yup, I get what they want.”

2. MEASURABLE

A goal has to be measurable. This is where some people can get caught up a bit and forget this step. You want to be able to know when you have made progress.  You know where you are now and you know where you want to be, but being able to track progress in between is crucial for motivational purposes and for your sanity.  You don’t want to feel like you are making no progress when you actually are and vice versa.

3. ATTAINABLE/ACHIEVABLE

A goal has to be attainable or achievable (whichever word resonates with you), which I know sounds a bit counterintuitive because you want to set a goal that you can reach, but you don’t want it to be so out of reach that you will never be successful. Because if you’re never successful, that will be defeating and your goal will go out the window and it will be hard to achieve what you want.  If you have a huge, reaching for the stars goal, that’s great! I’d advise breaking it down into attainable chunks, so while you’re going for the gold, you will be having little wins along the way.  You don’t want your goal to be easy. You want it to be hard enough that you are pushing yourself and extending your limits, but you also want to be able to accomplish it.  When you do, you’ll set a new reaching goal.

Your motto should be, “I’m going to crush my goals, and then set new ones.

4. RELEVANT

A goal has to be relevant to you.  Honestly, I feel like this is pretty self-explanatory. Your goal has to make sense for you and not someone else.  It needs to be something you’re passionate about and relevant to what you want in your life. You’re not going to be motivated by someone else’s goal. It has to be for YOU.

5. TIME-BASED

A goal needs to have a time limit, it should not be open-ended.  Open-ended goals can 1) be overwhelming and 2) never get done. It makes it easier to make a timeline, take action-steps, set smaller, more manageable goals within the bigger goal if you know when you want your goal to be met.

COMING SOON!

Having trouble creating a goal that covers all these essential elements? Grab my FREE goal-setting workbook << limited time offer>> so you can set a goal that sets you up to smash it and move you forward in life.  Its jam-packed with suggestions on how to implement each element, questions to get those goal-setting juices flowing, areas to brainstorm, alternative variations of the SMART framework, examples of kick-ass goals for any area of your life, tracking printables, and, of course, a little inspiration thrown in there too.

This exclusive workbook will only be FREE for a very short time. So if you’re SERIOUSLY SERIOUS about setting goals to crush in 2017, this is the workbook for you.