We're officially a week away from the unofficial end of summer. Inevitably people are going to start recommitting to New Year's resolutions (remember those?). They will come up with elaborate plans to make up for lost time. They'll even try out their plan for a week or two. Then, fast forward to January, they'll be making the same resolutions over again having made no real progress towards them.
This process plays itself every year for tons of people. Why? Usually because people are too smart for their own good. People tend to think if something is hard to accomplish, then the solution must be complicated. This isn't true. This is a problem of semantics. People tend to think that simple=easy. They also think complicated=better. Simple and easy can be synonymous but they often are not. For instance multiplication is simple but multiplying (by hand) 4356x8983 isn't easy for most of us. As for complicated, it is never better.
Below I've listed 6 simple steps you can use to take advantage of the rest of the year. Some of them are easy, some aren't. They'll all help you reach whatever goals you're trying to reach.
- Forget the last 8 months- they are gone and they are never coming back. So don't worry about trying to make up for the lost time.
- Plan out the next 4 months- if you haven't been doing much all year, then you're probably going to need to readjust your goals. (If you don't then your goals weren't big enough.) Scale back your goals to something that you can and will complete over the next 4 months. Then figure out the steps you need to take get closer to those goals. I'm talking actual steps, like things you can physically do.
- Do something...everyday- those steps you just figured out...start taking them. Do something that will get you closer to your goal everyday. This doesn't need to be anything huge. It just needs to be something and there needs to be something everyday. Should you do the same thing everyday? Or should you change it up? Sure.
- Keep track- at the end of each day ask yourself: what did I do to get closer to my goal today? Write the answer down...like on a piece of paper with a pen. Keep the paper easily accessible so you can do this again tomorrow.
- Measure progress...periodically- any movement towards your goal is progress. You should measure this....every so often. Progress takes time. Checking too often and not seeing progress can/will be a deterrent to continuing. So allow yourself time to make progress. Give yourself two weeks before your first progress check. This won't be easy, do it anyway. Then wait another two weeks before you check again.
- Adjust accordingly- if you check your progress and you're on pace to reach your goal...great. If not, well then something's gotta change. That's where that piece of paper (see #4) is going to come back into play. By this point you should have at least 14 things written down. If you don't, re-read #3 and #4, do them. If you do, look over the list and think about what went well and what didn't. Keep doing the things that went well, tweak the things that didn't go so well.
We still have a third of the year to take advantage of. Don't let what you did or didn't do in the first part of the year get in the way of what you're going to do to finish the year. Use these simple steps to help yourself stay on plan. Remember simple doesn't always equal easy but complicated never equals better. So you might as well, as the saying goes, keep It simple stupid.
