How to Actually Prioritize Your Goals this Year

 We have all been there. We desire to do this thing, change this habit, transform this part of ourselves, our routines, our day, yet we don’t actually give ourselves the chance because it feels way too overwhelming. It’s too hard. Instead, we decide to sit in what we know. Because it’s way more comfortable. However, it is way more simple than you even realize. Today I’m going to share with you the simple goal planning process on how to prioritize goals so that they can actually happen!

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Prioritize Goals – the Simple Process For Making Your Goals Happen

Oftentimes many feel this overwhelming pressure of the importance of setting goals. For good reason. Goal planning is necessary. Successful people talk all the time about how they make goals for themselves. And they contribute that as a major key to success. However, sitting down to actually plan out and prioritize goals can be challenging. It can feel incredibly overwhelming, and easily make you doubt yourself. The good news is, goal planning and prioritizing goals does not have to be hard. In fact it is quite simple. Sharing with you a very simple goal planning process to help you establish successful goals and prioritize those goals this year!

Because we all want something different. There’s always a part of us that wants something to change. Whether it’s our physical strength, or our habits within each day, or the way that we’re spending our time or our creative passions. Whatever it is that we deeply desire deep within us, it’s important to see it through. It’s important to say, you know what, I’m going to take a chance on myself and to see what happens. I am going to explore the possibility of what if!

A Beautiful Time of the Year to Prioritize Goals

And of course, the beginning of the year is a beautiful time to do that. But I want to challenge you with believing that every time of the year, every day, month, week, season is a beautiful opportunity to say, let’s start right now. That is exactly what the focus is here today sharing my simple goal planning process.

And with this super simple goal planning process, I have a resource to take things one step further! I have created a goal planning workbook that is designed to help you make your goals happen, in the most simple way possible! As well as to help you believe in the process of goal planning.

I fully believe that the goal planning workbook has the potential for you to actually take actionable steps and not just dream of the things. But to actually do the things! That’s what I’m cheering us all in for this year. To actually take that step with confidence.

Super Simple Goal Planning 

So the goal here is super simple and it’s really easy goal planning. This is remove all of the feelings of overwhelm, and the lack of clarity. As well as the simple tendency of feeling inadequate. Because when we dig deep and really try to build and plan new goals for ourselves, it’s so easy to feel like we’re failures.

When we are establishing goals, it’s rooted in something that we are hoping to achieve. Usually that’s coming from an area where we feel like we are falling short. While that is true, we want to be super careful to not be too hard on ourselves. Instead, view the goal planning process as something that is encouraging, something that is exciting, and something that is full of hope.

To view goal setting and planning as an opportunity to grow, to learn, and to figure out more of what works and what doesn’t work. Oftentimes, we cling to this idea of perfectionism. Creating goals that must be consistently met with perfection, yet we must give ourselves permission to let that go and instead learn to grow with our goals.

Five Simple Steps to Better Plan Your Goals

There are five steps within this simple goal planning process, in order to better equip you in prioritizing goals! I do have an additional bonus tip as well, that I believe is the icing on the cake to really make this possible! So that you can truly go forth this year with purpose and intention to take the very dreams and desires of your heart and make them real! And I fully believe you can do just that when you prioritize goals and plan accordingly!

Step #1 Goal Planning Process – Start with One Focus 

The very first thing to do in order to prioritize your goals, is to start with one focus. You can move on to more goals later, but focus on just one thing right now. Build on that one thing so that it becomes an active part of your life. Something that just happens without even thinking about it. So the very first step in the simple goal planning process is to focus on what is the number one thing that you want to focus on right now in this current moment, this current season of life.

Given your current schedule, as well as your current responsibilities, think through right now. In the mess, in the hard, and in the chaos, where you are currently standing. What is that number one focus? What is the one thing that if you could instantly change for things to feel better or look better or have a greater confidence, what is that one thing!

Pick Just One Thing To Start Out

Focus on that one thing. That’s the very first step to prioritize goals is to pick the one thing. And it’s okay if you don’t know exactly what that looks like. It’s okay if it’s not written out in this beautiful statement. Additionally, it’s okay if it looks messy. However, come up with what that one area is.

Some examples of what this could look like. This could be health or wellness. This could be fitness. Furthermore, this could be sleep. Or this could be cleanliness, an organized space to work. This could be working on a passion, or working towards a business goal. Additionally, this could be working on family relationships. But focus on just one for right now, please just focus on one thing. Therefore the first step in the goal planning process, to prioritize goals, is to determine your number one thing!

Step #2 Goal Planning Process – Unpack Your Focus 

The second step in order to prioritize goals and plan is to dive deep into your number one thing. During the first step, you determined what that thing is. Now, the second step is all about figuring out what that looks like. So you have your one focus, but then you need to understand what does that actually look like? Figure out what goes into this. Jot down everything you can possibly think of related to that one focus. 

As you’re doing this, let the thoughts just pour out of you. Write this down, have fun with this, dream a little bit. Know that some of these things are going to be super ambitious and far off the track, and that’s okay. While, some of these things might be super simple, where you’re thinking, I don’t even know if I should write this down. But go ahead and jot every single thing that comes to mind.

Examples on How to Prioritize Your Goals Through This Process

If my goal was to pursue a creative passion that I wanted to make as a profit income for my family, I would jot down every single thing I could think of in that moment that would help me get that goal. From the super small things to the big things, I would take time to write down every single thing in the process.

Or, if my goal was to focus on really organizing our home, then I would write down every single thing that needed to be written down in order to do just that. This could include which rooms I wanted to organize, or the things that I needed to buy at Target to help organizing. As well as the list of things that needed to be thrown out.

Take the time to write down every single step. Write out everything that comes to mind that’s going to help you get this done. Write it all down, have it on a sheet of paper. That’s so important. Whether you type it out, or put it in your notes section on your phone or have it written down on a sheet of paper. Personally, I think it’s incredibly important to have it written somewhere so you can work with it. This is such an important step in the goal planning process.

Step #3 Goal Planning Process – Identify Any Potential Barriers 

So that brings us to the third step in the super simple goal planning process. And that is to identify any potential barriers. It’s so important before we move on to figure out, okay, what is going to prevent me from accomplishing this goal?

What are my obstacles? What are my distractions? Furthermore, what are the things that are going to stand in my way? And this can be a hard exercise to do because it’s really eye opening. If you think through the actual things that have the potential to stand in your way, it’s quite revealing. Potential barriers could include things such as, snoozing the alarm, or my cell phone, or scrolling random things on social media, or watching random shows that I don’t really care about on Netflix, or having excess stuff, or going to bed way too late, right?

Think through what are the very specific things that have the potential to distract you and prevent you from accomplishing your goal. It’s so important to write down those things because when you write them down it brings it to the forefront of your mind. It allows you to then look at these things and get serious. If I’m wanting to achieve this goal, I need to be mindful of not spending any or all this extra time in these areas. That really is a key to success, just by identifying what the potential barriers could be and is essential when you prioritize goals and plan for success.

Step #4 – Determine The Simple Steps To Make Your Goal Happen 

This brings us to the fourth step, the fourth step to prioritize your goals which is to determine the simple steps to make your goal happen. Now that you’ve identified your potential barriers. Now that you are clear on what has the ability to hold you back, go back through your list from the second step, the list where you took everything out of your brain and wrote down all the necessary steps to get what you needed, the things to get you where you want to go.

Look through that list and circle or highlight the four to six things. I would say five, but you could also do four, or you could do six, but go through and circle the very specific things that you believe really truly can work. What are the things that you have written down that you believe is actually possible to achieve.

Go through your list and if something is super far fetched and something that truly isn’t even practical or possible, how is this something that I’m wanting to accomplish? Cross that off the list. Focus on just the four to six things that are going to be super, super easy, attainable things. Choose the things that are going to get you where you need to go. Highlight them, circle them, and start with that list.

Step #5 – Schedule These Steps Into The Calendar 

The fifth and final step to prioritize goals is to schedule the simple steps into the calendar. Now that you’ve done that, now you want to take a look at your week. This is step number five. This is when you actually schedule those tips, those steps into your week. If you work on a Google calendar, or if you have an actual physical paper planner. Personally, I love doing this in a paper planner because then you can build it into your week and you have your list of four to six things and you can schedule them in your week.

Determine When These Small Steps Are Going to Happen

So take a look at your whole week. Take a look at your Sunday to Saturday spread and figure out when are these things going to happen. Go in and put them in a place with a time. It doesn’t have to be a specific time attached, but it can be a window of time. This could be the morning or the time before work. Or this could be at night. Or during lunch. This can be during the afternoon break, whatever your day looks like. View your day in little segments as well. And figure out when these things are going to happen.  This is absolutely essential to properly plan and prioritize your goals.

Bonus Tip #6 – Goal Planning is a Constant Evolution 

Now, a bonus tip on how to prioritize your goals in order to accomplish the very things you set out to accomplish. Number six, view goal planning as a consistent evolution. When you commit to prioritizing your goals, it is essential to remember that goal planning is a process. It’s a process of continued growth.

Try this out for a week and see what works. See what went well and what didn’t happen according to plan. Then, learn from that and keep that in mind when revisiting it for the next week. Often times I will look at my planner and I will realize, oh my gosh, I just wrote down all of these crazy goals for the week and nothing actually happened.

And it could be easy to feel bad about yourself or like a failure. However, what if we learned from it?   Learn from what works and what didn’t work. Don’t view it as this imperfection or failure, but instead view this as an opportunity for growth. And so it’s really important to consider that when you prioritize goals.

Make Adjustments as Needed While Working to Prioritize Your Goals

Furthermore, please do not allow one bad week or crazy, hectic circumstances throw you off. Try again and again. Focus on the attempt of the schedule that you created. Try it for a couple of weeks, then evaluate and see what’s working. And if things are still not working, then readjust. Focus on where the problem areas are and why they are a problem.

Think through, okay, this isn’t working, why? Well, if it’s because I can’t wake up in the morning, then I need to go to bed earlier. Come up with an actual solution to see if that makes a difference or make small adjustments in other places of your day and learn from there and see whether or not that is a success. Work small. View goal planning as a continued process of growth and believe that you will figure this out.

Trust yourself and know that you are absolutely capable of accomplishing your goals. It’s something that takes time. Therefore, get excited about learning more about yourself and discovering more of you in the process. You can absolutely do this! 

It is Possible to Prioritize Your Goals This Year

Super quick recap for you before you head out into the rest of your day. Our super simple goal planning process:

1. Identify your major area of focus.
2. brainstorm different steps and tasks for that one area.
3. identify potential barriers.
4. determine the four to six steps that will help you get there.
5. build those steps out into your week.
6. test it out, see what works, and of course, go from there.

I hope that you found this incredibly encouraging and useful, something that you can take with you this year to help move forward in that direction that you are wanting to go.

And please know, I absolutely believe in you. The area that you are desiring change in your life right now It’s absolutely possible. You can absolutely accomplish that major goal, and I will be right here cheering you on every single step of the way.

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