Reaching Your Goals is Perfectly Possible.

Goals are important. Big and little. As women, and especially as mothers, we can have the long-term goal of raising our children to be happy, healthy, socially responsible, productive members of society. We can have the long-term goal of a successful marriage. Or, perhaps, career growth. All very big and admirable goals. But, short-term goals are just as important – I think of them as the stepping stones to cross the rivers of the big goals.

So, how do you remain motivated to achieve your goals, especially when you don’t feel very motivated? For me, these five steps are key:

1. Take your journey one day at a time. Don’t look 8 months down the road. Look at today. Wake up each morning and tell yourself you have what it takes. Do at least one thing to take you to your goal every day. If you are competing for a pageant, maybe that will be practicing your walk, reading an inspirational book, answering 5 mock-interview questions out load, and trying a new make-up style – only you know how you can prepare. But, every day when you do that thing for yourself, tell yourself, “I’m doing this for me to be the best version of me.”

2. Look for ways to celebrate you. What do you do that no one else does like you? You’ll know what it is because people often say, No one ____ quite like you!” Now, think about how this can become your internal mantra to drive you harder. Do you inspire people like no one else, do you coach like no one else, teach, bake? Recognize when you are being uniquely you in your best way and say to yourself, “___ is what makes me perfect!”

3. Know why you want to achieve this goal and remind yourself of that daily. Is your goal a lifelong dream? Knowing why you want to achieve a goal is great motivation for getting there.

4. Reward yourself for the small milestones. Did you take 2 inches off your waist? Drop 2 pounds? Tighten a little underarm jiggle? Craft a six-pack? Master 5 inch heels? Praise yourself for what you have accomplished so far. Sometimes as we are moving toward a goal, we forget where we started.

5. Tell yourself – that’s enough ENOUGH! Refuse to pay attention to the “enough” questions, i.e. Am I _____ enough? Know that you are enough. You are. Believe it.

I was doing a challenging P90X yoga the other day and the instructor was trying to get the class to lift our torsos higher. He said, “Don’t think about your feet on the ground, think about your hands in the air.” To me, it was the perfect metaphor for reaching goals. Don’t think about where you are starting, think about where you are striving to be.

Article Source: Michelle Moore