Now, the only "New Year's Resolution" I have is, not to have a New Year's Resolution. I know that sounds funny but I have found that it sets me up for failure every year. I will go hard and heavy for a week, a month or even three months only to fizzle out because I am not reaching the intended goal because it seems so far away. Instead, I have implemented something a little more productive.
I am not sure what you would call my method except for setting small goals to get to the bigger one but that becomes a mouthful. Not only that but there are people more qualified than I am to teach you about goal setting so I have included an excerpt from a great tutorial located at the Goal Setting Guide website:
I
encourage you to pick up a pen and a piece of paper and jot down the
goals you want to reach. Look at each goal and evaluate it. Make any
changes necessary to ensure it meets the criteria for a SMART goals:
S
= Specific
M
= Measurable
A
= Attainable
R
= Realistic
T
= Timely
The post today is not specifically about goal setting. It is, however, more about accomplishing smaller chunks of the overall goal in order to lead to satisfactory completion of the major task at hand."Uh, what did he just say?" Let me explain it this way.
I have gotten larger tasks completed by breaking them into smaller and more manageable tasks. For example, the first task in my mind was to ensure my family was prepared for a year of no electricity. My impending event was our yearly winter ice storms and the slowness of the power company getting power restored to my house. I was going to stock enough food and water for a year for myself and my family. This was a crazy idea! I didn't have that kind of time nor that much money. I did have the time and money to take the larger goal and break it into smaller goals in order to complete it. Make sense?
How did I do that? My first goal was ensuring that we had enough food, water and security for 72 hours. Three days. Josh Robbs from GotPrep.com stated in a recent podcast, "You can live without food for 72 hours". He also mentioned that food may not be in your 72-hour plan because of this fact. Water may, and should, be included though. Another example is if it is winter, blankets and/or other heat sources might also be included in your plan. This is an example of how you can adjust the short term goals as needed while never losing site of the overall long term goal. I broke the year down into a manageable 72 hours.
I was grocery shopping with my lovely and wonderful wife the other day and I casually mentioned the 72-hour plan to her. She stopped me, grabbed my hand, smiled and said, "we have enough food for three weeks, so what are you going to work on next?". This hit me as I didn't realize just how much food we had because I hadn't broken it out into daily food versus our food storage items. It is with that statement that I have since stopped, reviewed my goals and adjusted based on what the end result is to be.
By adjusting after reviewing, I was able to correct the course that the ship is already moving on by adjusting the amount of water as well as a few other items that need to be added to the plan. It is because of this that I am excited about finishing up the last little bit of my first goal of the 72-hour plan and being able to start working on a three week plan.
Before I leave this week's post as
just a download of information, start thinking about your adjustments
and how to get the short goals accomplished. By using the SMART
method from above, you can have things done sooner than you think and
feel great about your accomplishments.
I hope this makes things a little
easier. I know it did for me. As always, feel free to comment on this
post below.
Use your instincts to survive!
Special Thanks to Josh Robbs at GotPrep.com
Photo:
freedigitalphotos.net/Grant Cochrane
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