Brown Pepper Talks

Okay, so imagine this first scenario. It is the beginning of March and you have been on a roll with your new year goals and resolutions. Slowly though, you find yourself getting lost in tasks, politics & life in general, and you start to become overwhelmed. Eventually you find yourself less and less engaged in your goals. Second scenario, you have mentally planned what your intentions are for the year. You have made a vision board and an action plan. As 2024 starts, you find yourself not starting anything that you envisioned. You find yourself having a sense of being overwhelmed, ashamed or disheartened about yourself. Does this sound like you? I am here to say that you are not alone! If you find yourself struggling with starting and keeping up with your goals, you have come to the right place. I will explore and share with you tips that have helped me plan to execute and build towards my goals.

We always hear the saying that action and discipline towards any goal is more productive than motivation will ever be. I agree. However, without motivation we cannot build the momentum to create the discipline, action, and habits to seek the goals we want. SO, the first thing I believe, is when you feel that first spark of motivation, that is when we attack! What do I mean by attack? This is where I will show you how I removed the stress I felt and changed my mindset of yearly planning my goals.

So lets get started. On a blank document or a notebook you can divide your goals into health, work, finance or any other sectors you feel that is important in you. It should focus on things you feel need improvement or growth.

Now under each heading, write your one major goal for each.

Done? Ok good.

NowTHE important part! Under each sector, I would like you to write 12 mini goals that can help you to obtain this major goal. You can either write 12 for all your major goals combined, or write 12 goals for each sector separately. This may take some time to think about and that is okay! Write things that you feel you will actually implement and that are realistic to you.

Now as an example, a major goal of mine this year is to work on strength training by lifting more and building more muscle. After writing that, I started writing 12 mini goals that I could implement daily to get to this goal:

1) Get a personal trainer to get out of my plateau and to learn more.

2) Work on getting better sleep.

3) Stick to training 3-4 days a week.

4) Eating more vegetarian protein sources.

5) Getting enough protein during the day.

6) Drinking enough water!

7) Time management to get my workouts in.

8)

9)

10)

11)

12)

Etc, etc. You get my drift yes? If you have any major deadlines for any major projects jot these down. It will help you to recall and having it noted helps to keep organized.

Once you have done this, it’s time to implement. Or in otherwords, take ACTION. They say it takes 21 days to build a habit. But in order to, I feel setting these mini goals can help keep accountability to achieve the major goal you have set for yourself. It can also help us understand things we value. We are more likely inclined to keep practicing the small changes we have planned in our mini goals if we have made these small steps ourselves, to know our WHY.

I hope this all makes sense. Now that you have some insight, how can we execute action for our goals? It find it helps to write or record in your phone, a task list in your daily day to day life. Within those tasks, implement the mini goals in it. You will find in time if you are persistent, that you will slowly adapt to these changes and in return get to your major goal. In a way its sort of like habit stacking and this will help your life in general!

You might be thinking now “Okay, what now though? Will I get to my goals in the end?” and “What do I do at the end of the year with this?”.

The answer to the second question is YES! When the end of the year comes around or after a month or two after new years eve (I am doing this myself in March! I procrastinated but made sure I wrote this as a task to eventually look at), look back at your mini goals that you set for yourself. Reflect. Could you tick off and proudly and say that a habit was built or that a mini goal was met? Did it help you reach to your main goal? This will ultimately help you to achieve anything long term. You will feel happy and encouraged to continue your journey to get to your goals. And hey, if you met your goal, congratulations!

Obtaining goals and manifesting can take time. If you do these mini goals, I promise you it will help you feel very accomplished. If you find that you are not completing tasks daily, that is okay! Be kind to yourself and remember that the next day is another day to always start fresh. Remember that these mini goals will lead to habits and these habits will help your life overall. There can be days where we will naturally feel disheartened or feel we are not accomplishing anything. But again, by doing this habit long term, it can help you get out of that slump quicker. I myself have had these moments and whatever I have written to you today, is exactly what helps me to keep moving forward. I have achieved some goals in the last two years with this technique. It was all because of this new approach and new mindset to reflect afterwards. To make a change for greatness for myself.

I hope that you all achieve whatever goal you are aiming for this year.

I believe in you and good luck!