It’s that time of year when people start goal setting for the new year. It’s only normal, a new year offers the possibility for a new you, right?

However, only around 8% of people actually achieve their resolutions each year. And, only around 75% of those who set goals follow through with them after the first week of the year.

It’s crazy that 25% of people already stop working towards their goals after just the first week!

With today’s blog post, I’m going to help you stick to the goals you set for 2017 and become successful with them in the new year.

And, before you throw out the idea of goal setting and New Year’s resolutions, or judge people who are doing so, please keep this quote from Statistic Brain in mind:

“People who explicitly make resolutions are 10 times more likely to attain their goals than people who don’t explicitly make resolutions.”

This is why I believe that setting goals and making a plan to reach them is so important.

Due to that, let’s make 2017 a great year. Let’s work on managing our money better, living our dream life, traveling more, and succeeding with whatever 2017 goal you want to reach.

Here are my tips and advice to help you reach your 2017 life goals. Plus, at the end of this blog post, I’ve included my 2016 goal progress as well as my goals for 2017.

Posts related to goal setting:

• 75 Ways To Make Extra Money
• How To Save 50% Or More Of Your Income
• 8 Things To Sell To Make Money
• 30+ Ways To Save Money Each Month

9 goal setting tips for success in 2017:

 

Review the previous year and your previous goals and objectives.

Before you start thinking about 2017, you should think about how 2016 went for you.

Think about the goals you reached, the successes you had, and more. Then, think about what you wish you could have done better and the areas you struggled with.

By completing this step, you’ll be able to better figure out what you need to do in 2017 in order to have a successful year.

 

Make sure your goal setting is SMART.

You should always make sure that any goal you set is SMART.

A SMART goal is:

• Specific – What is your goal? Is it specific enough or is it too broad? What needs to be done for you to achieve your goal? Why do you want to reach your goal?
• Measurable – How can you measure your progress? How will you know if you’re on track?
• Attainable – Can your goal actually be achieved?
• Realistic/relevant – Can you achieve your goal? Is the goal worth it?
• Time – What’s your time frame for reaching your goal?

 

Write down your goals and objectives for 2017.

Writing down your goals for 2017 is a very important part goal setting.

Completing this step can help you remember your goal and why you want to achieve it. Whenever I don’t write something down or have it in front of me on a regular basis, I tend to forget about it.

If you can’t remember your goal, it would be very hard to reach it. I suggest that you think about:

• Creating a blog to detail your progress.
• Making a vision board.
• Putting post-its around your home that list your yearly goals.
• Placing reminders on your phone, calendar, or whatever else you use for your to-do list.

Related tip: If you’re looking for a life planner, I highly recommend checking out Erin Condren and looking at their life planners and monthly planners. This can be a great way to stay motivated so that you can reach your goals!

 

Create a plan to reach your life goals.

If you want to stay motivated with your goals, then one of the first things you should do is to create a plan on how you will reach your goal.

A plan can help you focus on the steps it will take to reach your goal, instead of feeling like you are all over the place.

Your plan should detail the steps you need in order to reach your goal, what will happen as you reach each step, when and how you will track your progress, and more. Being detailed with your plan will help you reach your goal and become successful.

 

Break your goal apart into smaller goals.

Having a full year to reach your goal is a long time, and you may forget about your goal or just become overwhelmed by it.

What I recommend doing is creating 12 goals for your overall goal, one for each month of the year. Basically, each month would be a step that gets you closer to your overall goal.

This can be a great way to stay motivated and see the progress you are making towards your overall goal, and you’ll know exactly what you need to do in order to be successful.

For example. If your goal is to become a blogger in one year (this is just an easy example for purposes of this blog post), your monthly goals may be something such as:

• January – Think of a blog idea and a name.
• February – Start a blog and create a blogging plan.
• March – Create an editorial calendar.
• April – Find ways to monetize a blog.
• May – Reach X amount of page views.
• June – Attend a blogging conference.
• July – Guest post on 10 websites.
• August – Grow your email list to X subscribers.
• September – Build an emergency fund for X months.
• October – Reach X in blogging income.
• November – Grow a social media account to X.
• December – Become a blogger!

 

Keep track of your goal setting progress and make changes (if needed).

To stay motivated with your yearly goals and become successful with them, you should review your progress every so often. You may want to check in daily, weekly, or monthly, depending on what type of goal you have and what personally works for you.

Keeping track of your goal setting progress is a good idea because it can tell you what you need to do in order to reach your goal, whether or not you are behind, or if you need to make a change.

Related: I highly recommend that you check out Personal Capital (a free service) if you are interested in gaining control of your financial situation. Personal Capital is similar to Mint.com, but 100 times better as it allows you to gain control of your investment and retirement accounts.

 

Find small ways to stick to your goal.

Many fall off track when it comes to their goals because sometimes the daily steps they are taking are just too big. This may cause a person to ignore their goal because they are feeling lazy (we’ve all felt this!), tired, and so on. This can lead to spiraling out of control and completely falling off track.

Forgetting about your goal, for even just a short period of time, may also contribute to you falling off track.

A better idea for the days when you don’t feel like working towards your goal is to take smaller steps. This way you won’t completely forget about your goal and you also won’t feel like you have entirely given up. This will make days when you’re feeling “off” much easier to deal with.

Several examples so that you can learn how to get back on track include:

• If you are trying to eat in more, do a batch freezer cooking session to stay on top of preparing meals ahead of time. This way you will have a meal to turn to on the days when you don’t feel like cooking.
• If you’re not feeling like working out, then do something small instead. Try to fit in some squats, lunges, jumping jacks, or whatever else you can while you are cooking a meal, watching TV, or getting ready.
• If you are trying to reach financial goals but are feeling overwhelmed, you may want to start automating as much as you can, and so on. This can make reaching your financial goals a little easier.

Find ways to motivate yourself when setting goals.

Motivation is what keeps you going so that you do not quit. However, finding motivation can be a hard task for anyone.  But it’s so important to find what motivates you because it will help you continue to work towards your goal, even when it seems impossible.

Here are a few ways to motivate yourself so that you can learn how to get back on track and not give up on your goals:

• Create a vision board and keep it somewhere that you will see on a daily basis.
• Make it a friendly competition (read more below).
• Find ways to reward yourself as you get closer to your goal.

Related: How To Stay Motivated And Become Successful

 

Make reaching your goal a friendly competition.

One great way to stay on track with your goals for 2017 is to turn your goal setting into a competition between you and someone else.

Finding an accountability partner can make reaching your goals more fun and potentially easier.

This is because you won’t be going at it alone, you’ll have someone to talk to who is going through a similar process as you, you’ll have someone else pushing you to succeed, and more.

There are many ways to find an accountability partner. An accountability partner can be someone you know, such as a friend, family member, coworker, and so on. They can even be a stranger, such as someone you met online who has a similar goal.

 

Update on my 2016 goals:

• PASS! Get at least two months ahead on Making Sense of Cents posts. I am currently two months ahead. I wonder how far I can get next year!
• PASS! Grow Making Sense of Cents. While my page views didn’t grow in 2016, my email list grew significantly as well as all of my social media accounts.
• FAIL. Be active every day. While I am a pretty active person, I doubt I was active every day in 2016, haha.
• PASS! Have fun living in the RV full-time! Living in an RV has been a ton of fun so far. I can’t wait to see what amazing places we go in 2017.

 

My 2017 goals:

• Get at least three months ahead on Making Sense of Cents posts. I figured since I am currently two months ahead, I might as well work even further ahead. Being ahead in blog posts makes life much more enjoyable because I can focus on other things knowing that the majority of my writing work is already done.
• Grow Making Sense of Cents to 1,000,000 monthly page views. I would love to help more readers, see even more engagement, have higher traffic, and so on. I love my blog and I would love to see it grow! I’m hoping to see at least 1,000,000 monthly page views by the end of 2017.
• Start doing more live interviews, such as podcasts and webinars. I’m not as shy as I used to be, but living in an RV and not always having an internet or a reliable schedule makes podcasts and webinars are a little more difficult. I hope to find a way around that (perhaps planning out a better schedule?) and make time for more of these two things.
• Create one more product to sell. In 2016, I created Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing, and that has completely changed my life and my business. I want to think about and create another product to sell in 2017 so that I can continue to diversify my income.

What goals are you hoping to reach in 2017? What goal setting tips do you have to share?

 

The post The Best Way To Set Goals And Reach Success in 2017 appeared first on Making Sense Of Cents.

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