Usually a large part of my work is helping clients set achievable and realistic goals whether they are short or long term, I have noticed recently that people are really struggling to set the longer term goals and I think there are few reasons for that. Life is tough right now, with the rising prices of so much, the uncertainty of how we’re going to manage the increasing cost of living, the uncertainty in general, with the world feeling like it’s all gone a little bit mad right now, setting long term goals somehow seems too tough and maybe even pointless? How do we motivate ourselves when every time we turn on the news it seems to be more and more depressing?
It’s about living in the here and now, it enables you to cope, to not feel so overwhelmed with what is going on (or not) around us.
I understand how hard this is – I’m working with lots of small businesses, lots of people who are self-employed and I can see it’s tough, it’s particularly tough to plan for the future even though you know that you should (and I hate the word should) and how do you plan for the future when you are literally putting 1 foot in front of another keeping your head above water and it feels like all your energy needs to go into that and to a certain extent that’s true.
Once again, I bring you back to the importance on focusing on what you can affect today.
I’ve never been one for planning too far ahead, my choice but probably because throughout my whole life my plans have changed, my situations have changed, I have found myself taking numerous different paths to the ones I originally thought I was going to travel on. It suits me to plan on a much more short-term basis, I have smaller short-term goals, so I still get that sense of achievement but don’t feel so overwhelmed
It’s recognising that all goals don’t have to be HUGE and life changing, in fact many people find it easier achieving goals if they break them down into smaller tasks. So for example if you have set yourself targets for your business this year, how could you break this down into smaller bite-size chunks? What can you do today that will affect tomorrow? Maybe it’s something as simple as going through your diary and blocking out time to address your social media or update your website giving yourself a chance to actually get on top of these things? Maybe you your admin has run away with you – can you do an hour today, an hour tomorrow and so on?
On a personal level if one of your long-term goals has been to get fitter or healthier, what can you do today to increase your activity or perhaps change a small element what you eat or drink that can make a difference? Can you set yourself a goal that for the next week you will have an extra walk each day and drink 2 more glasses of water each day than you would usually – small achievable goals.
When the world seems unbalanced, when we feel out of sorts and overwhelmed don’t fixate on the big stuff, do what you can when you can, set small achievable and realistic goals for yourself so you keep moving forward even if it’s just baby steps they are still steps forward. Once life feels more balanced again (and it will) you can look further ahead but right now, it’s all about today, tomorrow and what you can do to affect those days in a positive way.
