March Goals + Why Goal Setting Works

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Here are my goals for this month. If you’ve followed me on Instagram, you’d know I share my goals at the start of each month and at the end of the month, a report back on how I did with those goals.

Before I get into actually sharing my goals for the month, I’d like to share why I started setting goals and why it works for me.

Why goal setting?

I was a classic example for going guns ablaze with resolutions at the start of very new year only to crash and burn before January even ended! It was always a disaster waiting to happen because I went too much, too soon.

To be specific, most of my resolutions revolved around fitness and weight loss. That’s perhaps what tops most people’s resolution lists I bet!

With a lot of time spent introspecting and stalking the fitness community on social media, came the idea to set goals instead of resolutions. What’s in a name you may ask.

In my opinion, a resolution is merely a generic statement, which can include things like:

“I will lose 15kg,”
“I will spend a lot less time on the phone and/or internet”
“I will not spend on unnecessary things”

Goals, on the other hand, are more specific:

“I will lose 5kg by March”
“I will spend x amount of time on the phone and/internet and spend the time reading or with family”
“I will save $500 by March to put it towards a holiday this year”

Goals are specific, come with a timeline are much easier to stick to than resolutions, which is why they work for me.

To give you some context, I took to goal setting about one year ago, and it helped me greatly with accountability. When I set goals each month, I think about what I am trying to achieve and how I want to go about it. I break them into three goals – daily, monthly and yearly.

My means to achieve my yearly goals are simply though daily and monthly goals. Each day I chart out specific goals I want to target like:

“Finish Body Pump class at gym”
“Stick to the meal plan”
“Hit the bed before 10 pm”
“Read 25 pages of the current book”

Each of these daily goals, help me get to my monthly goal in some way or the other. At the end of last year when I took stock of my goals I set at the start of 2017, turns out I had achieved most of what I set to do! Thus proving my point that they are heaps better than resolutions, which I had 0 success with.

How do I set my goals?

I keep them simple, realistic and achievable. Even with goal setting I have made the mistake of being overambitious in the past. Oh well, we live and we learn. I’ve since kept it simple and relevant to what I want to achieve in that particular month.

For me, saying my goals out loud makes me accountable. I put out there for people to see so that I don’t slack. I even have virtual and real-life accountability buddies who check in with me frequently. I keep it real and honest with my results. If I don’t tick a goal off, I do it all over again the next month.

Anyhoo, if haven’t bored you already and you have stuck it out to read my March Goals, here they are! I will, at the end of March, share my results with you all. =)

What about you – are you a goals or resolutions person? Share in the comments in below.

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