Goal setting: striking a healthy balance to realize your dreams

DREAM BIG AND CRUSH YOUR GOALS WHILE LOVING THE JOURNEY WITH A BALANCED, HEALTHY LIFESTYLE!

Your mind is buzzing with new ideas, hopeful dreams and life goals. But if you’re anything like me, the process of goal setting—much less achieving those goals—is a bit overwhelming thanks to high ambitions and an overflowing vision board. Sometimes it’s just plain difficult to know how (or where) to start!

Now let’s imagine you find your focus and start taking actionable steps to crush your goals. All of your goals. At once.

You’re doing awesome for the first couple of weeks. You feel like you’re on top of the world. A superhero, even! Then, a shift. Your drive (and motivation) starts to slip. Your big dreams, one by one, become yesterday’s future.

READ: Immediately boost your motivation to reach new goals

What happened?

Two words: goal overload.

Finding the right balance when setting and working towards goals is essential to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. As a result, you’re more likely to actually achieve your goals. This means it’s best to:

• Only go after the goals you really want
• Start small and prioritize
• Set boundaries
• Love the journey!

Ready to strike that perfect balance between living a happy, productive life and reaching your dreams? It’s time. Let’s go set some goals!

Only adopt the goals YOU want

Society has a way of making us feel like we should plan our life based on someone else’s schedule. Go to college, have children, be ridiculously successful, own fancy cars, dress effortlessly chic—the list goes on.

If these are your life dreams, great! There is absolutely no problem with anything you want in life. As long as it’s what YOU truly want.

Even still, it’s no secret we face pressure from outside forces. Pressure with the power to sway our decisions. Remember learning about peer pressure in childhood years? It’s still very real, even for adults.

To combat this pressure, it’s our duty to respect ourselves and fight for the life we crave.

For a better understanding of the type of lifestyle that will give you the most meaning, ask yourself:

• Who do I treasure most?
• How do I enjoy spending my time?
• What kind of person do I want to be?
• What activities do I want to do more of?
• What values are most important to me?

Once you push past what others expect of you, you’re able to focus more on what makes you happy to set goals that align with your unique journey.

A vision board is a great way to dig deep and visualize the types of dreams you’re meant to follow. Learn more about how to make your own stellar vision board here with Nadalie from ItsAllYouBoo.com.

Be mindful when creating a plan

Start small

When it comes to setting attainable goals while maintaining a balanced lifestyle, starting small is a must. Keep in mind, this doesn’t mean you’re limited to setting small goals. I know you have big dreams! So rather:

• Be specific of what you want to achieve to help you create actionable, measurable steps
• Break your big dream down into smaller, more manageable mini goals
• Create a timeline of when you want to realize each mini goal to stay accountable and motivated to reach each

In doing so, you’ll minimize the chance of becoming overwhelmed and be able to dedicate focused time towards reaching milestones, achieving them faster and generating a feeling of accomplishment that motivates you to continue the goal-setting trend.

You may even benefit from setting only one goal at a time. When concentrating on one specific goal, you can dive in wholeheartedly with minimal distraction for maximum productivity.

List it out

Create a list of each goal you wish to focus on. Remember, only adopt the goals you truly want! Think about what goals will provide you a life you love and can look back on with joy.

Now that you’ve listed out your goals, prioritize them. Consider what goals are most important to you in this moment, will take less or more time to achieve, and have the biggest, most immediate impact. Prioritize each based on how you envision your dream life.

Set boundaries

There are two ways you can set boundaries when setting and working towards your goals. Both are important to lead balanced, happy life and avoid pushing yourself beyond what you’re able to accomplish. After all, there are only 24 hours in each day—we can only do so much!

Say yes to your goal

When we have our eyes set on a particular goal, what does it take? Dedication and time. As important pieces of the success puzzle, it’s good to establish healthy boundaries with others so that you’re able to dedicate your time and effort on the taking the right steps towards achieving your goal.

For instance:

• Say you’re trying to lose weight and improve your health. You might need to say no to a coworker who invites you to lunch.
• If you want to save money, it’s probably best to save spa day with the girls for another time.
• Diving into entrepreneurship? Maybe you need to focus on building a business and miss those weekend outings you would have normally enjoyed.

Say yes to you

Remember, it’s also so important to love yourself. I bet you’d rather not see your health or family life decline because you’re pushing yourself too hard. If you do find this to be the case, take a step back.

As an example, I love creating content for and growing my blog. Dedicating myself to this blog during the evening and weekend hours means I’m not spending that time with my husband. Yet, he takes priority over blogging. I’m fortunate Mr. E respects my blogging goals and understands my commitment, but I don’t want to put unnecessary stress on our relationship.

To make sure I continue to nurture our relationship, I’m upfront and clear about my blogging responsibilities with him, and I give myself limits on how long I sit at the computer desk when I know he’s waiting for me to come to bed. What I love is that he knows it’s serious when I say, “I HAVE to get this blog post out today!” 😀

Saying yes to you could mean:

• Practicing daily self-care (even if it’s only 15 minutes)
• Nurturing relationships with family and friends with genuine conversation or quality time
• Giving your body a weekly rest if you adopted a strenuous exercise regime

Love the journey

Why do we set goals? Because we want to achieve success in some way or another, which means setting our sights on a desired result. And actually, focusing on the end goal and remembering why we’re on a particular journey can be a huge motivation if we find ourselves in a bit of a rut.

However, don’t let the destination overshadow your journey. Remember that phrase about the roses and stopping to smell them? As cliché as it may sound, it’s an important reminder to enjoy life in all seasons.

Say you want to accomplish a goal in one year.

That means you have 12 months from now until you hope to achieve said goal. 365 days. 8,760 hours. In that amount of time you’ll no doubt experience ups and downs, but you’ll also learn more about who you are as an individual, what makes you tick, and what motivates you to push yourself to new limits.

It’s difficult to picture the path to success as being as important as the end goal, but in actuality, science shows success does not necessarily translate into happiness. Rather, happiness drives you to success.

Loving the journey and living in the moment might mean you:

• Celebrate reaching milestones (or small victories) along the way
• Appreciate those who support you and your dream
• Show gratitude for your current blessings
• Embrace and learn from challenges
• Maintain a positive outlook

Your life is happening now! Love it and live it.

What steps do you take to maintain balance when goal setting and working towards your dream? How do you love your journey along the way?