Here’s what you need to achieve your big goals and resolutions this year

We all know January is the month of new goals and resolutions. New year new me, as every netizen proudly announces on January 1st. We greet the start of the year with optimism and hope. And why won’t we? There’s something absolutely wondrous about having the chance to start again.

The problem, my friend, lies in this teensy-tiny detail:

[bctt tweet=”Our optimism and hopefulness in achieving our goals often don’t last the entire year. Or even January.” username=”@allthetrinkets”]

Now there are tons of factors we could consider. Maybe it has something to do with a certain personality trait. Maybe you weren’t able to create an effective goal-slaying strategy. Or maybe – just maybe – the goals and resolutions you set for yourself was unachievable and unrealistic in the first place?

Before you get your feathers in a ruffle, let me make this clear.

I’m not saying you can’t dream big. By all means, do! In the world we’re currently living, we need all the dreamers. Those people who are unafraid to go beyond. (Plus Ultra, knowwhatimsayin)

But there is a fine line between setting big goals and resolutions, and achieving those same big goals and resolutions. And that fine line is incredibly important:

Action. You need to take one specific action in a certain way: Start smart. And how does one start smart, pray tell, Kate?

Oh, I’m so glad you asked. Through small things.

An Ode to the Small and Basic

When you want to achieve something and nothing seems to work, start again. And start smart and small. (I dare you to repeat that fast.)

I know I seem like a broken record at this point but it’s too important not to say again. The small things matter. Be it a small habit, a small change in your routine, small goals and resolutions. They matter. In the same way that rice matters to an Asian household’s daily meals. Small things matter just as ants are important in the ecosystem they’re in. They make up the foundation in which the big things stand upon.

Without the small positive changes you start to incorporate into your life, you can’t expect to see the big changes.

Whenever I’m stuck in a creative rut, I go back to the basic. And I start again – in small things. Doodles, sketches, and when I’m really in a huge, like capital H huge, rut, I do stick drawings.

The thing with small is that they’re… well, small. They’re so small, they’re achievable. Easy to cross off your to do list. They can be achieved in a short amount of time. And achieving one small goal can give you enough dopamine hit to cross off another small goal. Then another. And then another.

Now, how can you turn big goals and resolutions into smaller goals?

Chop them.

I’m not kidding. And I’m definitely not just trying to be gory – I hate gore. In order for big goals and resolutions to become small ones, you really just need to chop them into smaller pieces. Like slicing an entire triple-layer buttercream cake into small, delectable slices.

Make a big goal like “write a book” into something small like “write for 10 minutes everyday.”

If you want to read more books, make it a goal to read before you go to sleep.

To grow your social media, start by spending ten minutes engaging with the community.

If you want to get a job, have a quota of resumes you need to send everyday. This same thing also works if you want to land a guest post or writing op.

Go as small as it needs for you to jumpstart that change, or create that new habit, or achieve those big goals and resolutions. And remember to keep at it. Make yourself repeat the small things the next day. It could just be one chapter, or ten minutes, or five resumes / guest post pitches. Heck, it could be even smaller than that, if you like!

The important thing is you’re putting one foot in front of the other. You’re taking it one slice at a time, consistently. In a matter of time, you’ll have your foundation. And it is a stable and sturdy foundation.

I WANNA HEAR FROM YOU!

What are some big goals you have set for yourself this year? How can you turn them into smaller goals?

xx Kate

PS: Check out four other steps you can take to achieve your big goals.

LOVE THIS POST? DON’T FORGET TO PIN IT!

Photos from Ivory Mix

January 31, 2019 8 Comments

New Year, New You: Things you need to leave behind in 2018

New year new me, yes? YASSS.

That said, I know a lot of people don’t like doing New Year Resolutions, me included. But there’s just something absolutely wonderful in being given the chance to reset things. And I think that’s one of the lovely things we could do in January.

But if you’re like thirteen-year-old Kate and you’re deeply allergic to change, why don’t you try leaving things? Specifically, you need to leave behind the things that bummed you out last year? You know. People, mindset or stuff that did not make you happy in last year. Below is a handy list of things you can start with.

6 Things You Need to Leave Behind in 2018 so You Can Start 2019 on a Better Note

(featuring some awesome motivational tweets from awesome people)

1) Comparisonitis

The comparison game is one you’ll always lose. Celebrate who you are and what you have, rather than fixating on who you’re not and what you lack. You are enough and you have plenty to offer but you’ll never see it if you’re busy looking at everyone else. 😘💛#WednesdayWisdom
— Ruth (@ruthinrevolt) October 24, 2018

One of the things you need to leave behind this year is this modern-day ‘sickness’ which does not bring anyone any good. And if anyone tells me otherwise, I’m challenging them.

Comparisonitis is real. We’ve all been there. We have done it. Compared our lives with our neighbours or our friends or even someone you only know through the Internet. And this problem definitely got bigger in this age because of social media and how it made other people’s highlight reels a mere click away. You don’t need that on 2019, yo.

2) Compromising sleep and health

I love how has become more proactive. The hustle culture is an ever-growing one and I’m all for it! I love how everyone is ready to act on their dreams and goals. It is honestly so inspiring, and makes me want to do the same with mine.

But there’s also a flipside to this.

Sometimes, we are so focused on trying to achieve our dreams that we have disregarded other equally (if not more) important stuff like our health and wellbeing. You need to leave this behind, this unhealthy habit.

Friend, it’s good to hustle and work super hard for your dream life. But please don’t forget to take a break. Look after your body and wellbeing too. Make them a priority. It’s your main ship to get to where you want to go after all 🙂

3) Negative Self-Talk

If there’s one thing I learned last year, it’s that I really am the only person standing between me and the great opportunities waiting for me. Negative self-talk is comparisonitis’s ugly cousin. You don’t need either in your life this year. Which is why we’re leaving both of them behind.

I made 2018 my year of saying yes. To new opportunities and new experiences and new friends. I’m so grateful for everything that had come to my life. I don’t think I’ll be able to experience any of it had I listened to my negative self-talk. And that did take lots of work, too. This year, I will continue challenging negative self-talk.

4) Bad or unhealthy habits

This one’s probably one of the hardest one to leave in this list. I know it is for me. And that’s saying something because, boy, are these things hard.

But it is necessary.

We all have them. A bad habit or five that’s preventing us to be the best person that we could be. Or at the very least, be a better person than you are now.

For instance, mine are picking on my chappy lips and procrastinating until the very last minute. Both are habits with long-term consequences that I know my future self don’t want to deal with. But it is so freaking hard to stop them too, you know???

Anyway, I will work on it this year. Hopefully, by the end of the year, I shall happily report less lip-picking and procrastinating.

5) Toxic people

I’m aware most people will say to cut off the toxic people in your life. And I support this. You don’t need to surround yourself with negative people who easily and constantly ruin your everyday life. But I also acknowledge that this could get tricky when that toxic person is a close relative or family. For some people, cutting things off with that toxic person may not even be an option.

Does anyone else have someone toxic in your life but you can’t completely remove them from your life entirely? I feel like people are always saying to just cut them off but sometimes it’s not that simple or possible.
— Kelly ❄️ (@kellyxevans) September 2, 2018

6) Unhealthy and unnecessary perfectionist tendencies

Does this mean there are healthy and necessary perfectionist tendencies, Kate?

Why yes, there are.

Look. I’m a perfectionist. Does being one made life difficult for me? Yes. But do I still think there are great things that came out of my perfectionism? Absolutely.

See, if it weren’t for my perfectionist tendencies, I wouldn’t be able to deliver good work. I won’t make quality outputs in school, or during my internship or even here on my blog. It did help me in becoming detail-oriented and diligent. I do think perfectionism has some good sides to it. To a certain degree.

But like most things, too much of it is bad. One of the awful sides of perfectionism is the procrastination that happens when you have perfectionist tendencies — or perfection procrastination.

I know that most of these things above aren’t easy to leave or cut off. They could be awfully complicated, depending on your specific situation. But I hope that you try working on a couple or three of them. In order to be better and live a happier life, I believe that you need to leave something in the past. And find something better to carry for the now and the future.

Besides, isn’t that what self-improvement is all about? 🙂

I WANNA HEAR FROM YOU!

What other things do you want to leave behind in 2018? Share them below!

xx Kate

LOVE THIS POST? DON’T FORGET TO PIN IT!

Photos from Ivory Mix

January 16, 2019 11 Comments

2018 New Things: An Evaluation (and what I want to do moving forward)

Last year – or one year and 17 days ago, to be precise – I published a post in which I announced that I will try to do 10 new things in 2018. And the result… deeply astounded me.

Out of the 10 new things I set myself up to do last year, I was only able to do one.

WOW, KATE.

But because I kinda want to make up to (deeply disappointed) January 2018 Kate, I will look further into each New Thing and torture myself in embarrassment at the same time.

This is going to be fun, y’all.

1. Finish a horror movie without running away. I didn’t even watch any thriller last year, wow. But I guess it was to be expected since I was extremely busy for my last year in uni.

2. Make no-bake cheesecake. In my defense! I was going to do this over the holidays. But as I was spending Christmas and New Year’s in my grandparents’ house and all of the people living there either have diabetes or high cholesterol, I decided to just do it when I get back to Cebu.

3. Enroll in an art class. This is the One New Thing that I got to try out last year. So I signed up for one of Craftsy’s art courses because they had a promo back then. The course I signed up to is Kateri Ewing’s Startup Library: Painting with Watercolors. It was ah-mazing. I love the teacher and it tackled watercolour basics which really helped me understand watercolour better.

4. Make a popsicle house. I can’t believe I forgot I had this as a New Thing! And my brother had a project where he had to build one, hng.

5. Go to the gym. I don’t wanna talk about it.

6. Participate in an open mic. I remember I had plans on doing this last April at a popular tea house in my hometown, when I went home for a long break. But I learned that they no longer have an open mic there which was sad. I also didn’t know any other place that holds an open mic. So there you go.

7. Pierce ears. Omg, I was going to do this! But again, I had no time. Also, I was supposed to do it with my best friend but I only went home twice last year. Again, sad.

8. Eat sushi. Again not much free time = no time to go eat out. I did try out eating Korean barbecue and kimbap for the first time last year. So that sort of makes up with trying out new food, yes? Yes. And for a picky eater, I’d say that’s a win.

9. Listen to an album from a genre I don’t usually listen to. Um… I don’t think it counts because it was only one song but I listened to KDA’s Popstars.

10. No chicken or pork for a week. This is the one that I was disappointed at myself the most, to be honest.

All that said, it was quite disappointing for my first ever New Things year. For 2019, I will be tweaking things a bit and just try out five. Also, I’m going to add in a monthly assessment section on my Side Notes every month for this.

Five New Things I’m Going to Try in 2019

1. Make no-bake cheesecake

I am adamant in doing this, okay??? My family think I can’t make food outside instant stuff and frying eggs and cooking rice. I’ll show it to them. Also I just think it’d be nice to finally be able to try making something no-bake. I’ve seen them on Pinterest and they just look delicious and seem easy to do.

2. No chicken or pork for a week

As a notoriously known meat-eater, this is another thing my family don’t think I can accomplish. They don’t believe I can live with just fish and veggies. But I want to prove to them and myself that I can do this. This one’s going to be hard, though. So I’ll probably create a meal-plan for this specific week.

3. Attend a yoga class four times

I honestly have no idea how I’m going to do this but I want to try. I’ll have to research on yoga classes near me that I can attend to.

4. Attend a live watercolour workshop

I tried enrolling in an online art course last year. This time, I want to see if I get out of my introverted shell more and interact with people with the same interest. It’ll be fun too!

5. Post five video on Youtube

I’m still not sure if I want to appear on the videos or do a voice over or… just make videos but I haven’t dipped my toes on creating videos for fun and not for a school project. So this is going to be fun and anxious-filled.

Other than these five New Things, I also have three Big Goals I hope to achieve this year:

Have a collab with a huge brand on my blog
Save up for the CMA Board Exam (which I hope to take either this year or next)
Write a 100-page book. (I have no idea what it will be right now, but I just want to write one hehe)

I WANNA HEAR FROM YOU!

Did you achieve your goals last year? What are your goals for 2019? Share them below!

xx Kate

January 9, 2019 6 Comments

5 Actionable Steps to Set & Achieve the Big Goals

Pre-S: This is an old post I’ve written a year ago. I reckon it’s good to update it with a bit of new information I’ve recently learned regarding goal-setting so here ya go!

There are certainly people out there who can’t – for the life of them – achieve the big goals they’ve set for themselves.

I know this because… well, I’m one of those people.

And yo, I’ve tried every-freakin-thing. I did New Year resolutions. I’ve read every goal-setting blog posts available in the personal development community. I did it all. And it’s not like I can’t follow through with the tasks I need to do. I totally could.

If it was given to me by someone else, or if I gave my word to do something to another person, I sure as heck can follow through with my promise. My problem lies with the goals and plans I’ve set for myself.

It wasn’t until I learned about Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies that I realized there was nothing wrong with me. There are just people who, like me, find difficulty in meeting inner expectations.

This you?

Do you also have a hard time achieving the goals that you’ve set for yourself?

Do you set a big goal – you know, those goals that are ambitious and huuuge? – and eventually fall out of it?

Well, my friend, this post is for you.

HOW TO SET AND ACHIEVE THE BIG GOALS (when you’re not a pro goal achiever)

There are essentially two types of goals. The big goals, which are ambitious and often takes a long time to achieve. And the small goals which are more achievable. Since the small goals are easier to accomplish, we’ll pin that one for later and focus on the big goals.

Big goals seem farfetched. They’re what you call top goals, your ultimate goal in life. And because they’re huge, it makes sense that these goals take years of work to achieve. So they’re quite difficult to attain.

This and other internal complications (like self-doubt and low self-confidence) would add to your big goals’ difficulty. Which is why a lot of people don’t follow through with their big goals. But that does not make it ultimately unreachable.

Big goals are totes achievable, my friend! It all comes down to how you set them.

1) Know Your Why

Why are you setting this particular goal? Why is achieving this goal important to you? What are you trying to achieve? What will you get from achieving it?

Being able to answer these questions and knowing your why may seem all woo-woo at first. (Trust me, I thought so too.) But it’ll help you all throughout your journey of achieving that Big Goal.

Here’s what I’ve learned:

Goals are like cars. They’re great. With their help, you’ll get from Point A to Point B, easy. They carry you to where you need to go next. But they can’t do it all on their own. In order for your car to help you, you need to fuel it. You need gas.
You need a motivation power.

A motivation power is what powers your goal, to turn on and work. Without a motivation power, you’ll be stuck at Point A. With the wrong motivation power, you can’t get anywhere far.

Like, if you want to reach 1000 subscribers on your blog, just so you can reach 1000 subscribers, the motivation power of that goal is really really short. That’s because it’s the wrong motivation power. And if you want to reach 1000 subscribers on your blog because that’s what others are setting for theirs, that’s not the right motivation power either.
You can’t just set a goal for the sake of setting a goal. Or because that’s what someone else wanted. There has to be a purpose to it. Your goal needs to be meaningful to you. You would need something that will drive you to take action.

2) Turn Your Big Goal into Small Achievable Ones

If you’ve been around on my blog for a while, you would know how much I LOVE setting big goals into small achievable ones.

See, your Big Goal is one ginormous triple-layer buttercream cake. It’s delectable. It makes you salivate. But you can’t just open your mouth and gobble it all up in one go. I mean, you could try… but boy, will your jaw have cramps afterwards.

Instead, cut them into small neat slices. You can just concentrate on that one slice that’s on your plate and gradually work your way into every layer. Until you’ve eaten the entire cake.

See what I mean?

You can apply the same principle in goal-setting. Create milestones that you can focus one at a time. Angela Duckworth calls this a goal hierarchy. Your top goal, your Big Goal, can’t stand up on its own. It needs to be supported by a middle-level and low-level goals. These are goals that, once achieved, would bring you closer to your top goal.

So if you’ve got a five-year goal, slice it up to yearly goals. And you can even go further and turn those yearly goals into monthly goals. And then weekly. And then daily! This allows you to focus on only what you can do today. And through working on your small daily goals, you’re gradually working on your Big Goal one day at a time!

3) Don’t Let Doubt Creep In

I’m sure you already knew this: Achieving the big goals will not be a walk in the park.

You will encounter obstacles along the way. And one of your biggest adversaries is self-doubt.

The thing is, doubt is inevitable with big goals exactly because they’re not so easy to attain. All throughout your journey, doubt will pop out of nowhere. It’s like one of those recurring antagonists that just don’t die, you know?

So when you start thinking of worst-case scenarios, when the voices in your head are giving you all the reasons to stop, challenge it. List down all the reasons to forge ahead.

Similarly, if you shared the huge goal you wish to achieve to someone and they have that “Is he/she for real?” disbelieving look, walk away.

Just walk away. They will only add up to the doubt you’re already giving yourself.

And when I say walk away, you don’t necessarily have to ban them from your life forever. Sometimes the people who doubt us are those closest to us, those who are important to us. Which makes their disbelief all the more hurtful.

It’s sad but it’s true for a lot of people.

So whenever they wear that uncertain expression, ignore it. When they speak their doubts, let it pass through one ear and out the other. Or insist you can do it! And if they still persist on what they think, leave it alone. Don’t fight, especially if they’re important to you; you don’t want to lose them to a conflict of ideas. We all differ that way.

But you don’t want to lose that goal, too. Instead, look for other people who will support you, understand you, and share your journey with them.

4) Write Your Goals Down

I’m telling you, there is power in writing things down.

When you write things down, it:

Creates permanence
Makes abstract stuff more real
Puts things (like my scattered Obliger brain) in order

If it isn’t evident enough, I love writing. I like to journal, I love to free write (which you totally should try, by the way) and, every once in a while, I love to write poems too. And I’m not alone in this writing-love-fever.

There’s a reason why bullet journaling, or any kind of journaling for that matter, is still super popular today amidst awesome apps like Evernote or Keep. This is because the physical feel of writing is already therapeutic in itself.

This isn’t to say that putting your goals in notepad apps aren’t good. I do that too! I pin both my weekly and monthly goals in my Keep and place a reminder for them everyday. This is just to reenforce to my Obliger brain that I need to act on the goals I’ve set for myself.

The important part here is that you have your goals written out. That way, your goals feel more tangible.

5) Enjoy the Journey

Achieving your goals won’t be an easy journey. That much I can assure you.

But we have to remind ourselves sometimes that the process is just as important as the outcome.

There are many things that you will learn along the way. Maybe you’ll find out that your little milestones have changed and you’ve found another path to reach your Big Goal. Maybe your Big Goal has reshaped and molded itself into something else. That’s totally okay!

And when life gets you down, you know what you gonna do?

*DON’T STOP BELIEEEEVING HOLD ON TO THAT FEEEEELING*

Ahem. Okay. So that song actually holds some truth for goal-setting.

This is why having that purpose in setting your goal is important. I mentioned earlier that doubt creeps in any-freakin-time and I meant it. Don’t stop what you’re doing just because doubt arrived. Don’t stop believing that you will reach it. Because you can.

You totes can. I believe in you.

I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Do you have any big goals planned out for next year? Share them in the comments!

Kate xx

LOVE THIS POST? DON’T FORGET TO PIN IT!

November 7, 2018 12 Comments

Trying everything all at once achieves nothing

When I was a kid (and I was unknowingly living the glory days of not having to stress over college) I used to play this game. I called it “Don’t Let the Balloon Touch the Floor.” It’s a simple game: you launch the balloon up in the air and not let it touch the floor. And I enjoyed it. I felt like one of those superheroes when they do that agility trickery-do. I felt like I could do anything.

Now, imagine what would happen if there were more than one balloon you have to keep from touching the floor. Imagine twelve balloons. Suddenly it’s not so enjoyable now, is it? It will become tiring. You’d have to be in different places and look at all twelve balloons at once. Before long, you’d be out of breath and frantic. You’d be overwhelmed.

That’s also what happens when you try to work on everything – and I mean every minute detail – in your life at the same time.

I find that high-achievers and perfectionists such as myself struggle with this. Not only do I try to juggle college and blogging and my art and the occasional freelancing I get. I want to do all of them at the same time – and do it per-fect-ly. I want to keep all these balloons from touching the floor because they are all important. They all hold significant places in my life. It just feels wrong to choose one from the other when I could do everything I can to keep all of them afloat, right? Right???

Wrong, Kate. W R O N G.

Look, I love Shakira and I love Zootopia and Judy but I don’t think this is what they meant by “trying everything”. And okay, there’s nothing wrong with trying to find that delicious middle ground where you manage to balance everything. Work-life balance is, like, every twenty-something’s dream. Being a Master Multitasker just feels like the Productivity Holy Grail.

But to perfectly manage every aspect in your life perfectly?? It’s just damn near impossible.

Here’s the difficult pill to swallow:

If you want to exercise more regularly, but also eat more nutritiously, and meditate, and be more productive and write more words a day and also, like, want to master crocheting all-at-freaking-once, can you possibly dream of achieving any one of those things?

(In case you’re curious, yes, that pill is still stuck in my throat.)

Surprisingly, there are people who could. But the vast majority of the world can’t. I can’t. A lot of the people I know can’t. And if you’re one of us and you’re agonizing over this, I want you to know there is absolutely nothing wrong you!

This simply means that you are human (not saying that those who can master multitask aren’t) and you have limitations. You can only do so much at a time. Some things, like self-improvement, are simply not something you can multitask. Trying to improve every aspect of your life all at once will leave you exhausted. Like trying to keep twelve balloons afloat.

Sure, maybe all of the things you have to improve are important. But you don’t have to accomplish them altogether. You can take on one thing and focus on only that one thing.

Instead of balloons, imagine you’re making pottery.

You have one lump of clay on top of the pottery wheel. You work your damn best and do your frakkin-hardest to turn that lump into a work of art. And when you’re done (and it will be a work of art, because I believe in your awesomeness) you move on to work on the next lump. Then the next lump. Then the next. Focus on one thing at a time. Until you’ve accomplished all the lumps you had to work on. Until all of them are works of art.

And look! You didn’t have to juggle everything all at once! Yay you!

Do you also struggle with wanting to self-improve on #AllTheThings? Would you rather multitask on personal goals or try one thing at a time? Share your thoughts below!

xx Kate

LOVE THIS POST? DON’T FORGET TO PIN IT!

Photo from Ivory Mix

August 22, 2018 16 Comments

How to Follow Through with Your Goals

This post contains affiliate links. All opinions are my own and I only share things I absolutely love and deem awesome. Read here for my full disclosures.

January 1st is often the time we set and plan our goals for the year. And plan it we do – with glitter pens, washi tapes. Very happily I might add. We’re halfway through February now so I guess it’s an appropriate time to ask:

Hey. How are you?

How are you holding up with that goal of yours? Have you had any progress since January 1st? Have you done anything to make yourself one step closer to reaching your goals or doing that New Thing?

Or… let me take a wild guess on what has happened here:

The motivation to reach your goals is dwindling. Fast. Like alarmingly fast. It’s probably going downhill faster than a sorbetes melting in the Sahara Desert on its hottest day.

Yo I’ve been there too.

Making your goals and resolutions could be the Easiest Thing Ever but the implementing part would be as hard as rocket science. The good news? Following through your goals isn’t rocket science. Here are some awesome ideas that will help you follow through with your goals.

Create daily mantras and positive affirmations

The brain is kinda Type A when you think about it. It likes routine. It prefers repeated tasks because these things are easier for the brain to understand. One particular task you can do that has a great impact, not only to your brain but also emotionally, is creating daily mantras or positive affirmations.

Mantras have always been helpful to me when I needed a little push and self-motivation. I’ve dipped my toes on positive affirmations a few times but never really did it regularly. But I’ve heard many good things about saying affirmations so I’m gonna try them someday.

What to do: Think of several mantras and positive affirmations that strikes the motivation chord inside you. What I do is keep my go-to mantras at the front of my mind so it’s there when I need them. But you can also do a regular habit of telling yourself those positive affirmations every morning. Maud of My Passion Projects does this and she swears by it.

Break down your goals

I’ve talked about this plenty of times before and that’s because I vouch for this so much! Breaking down those big goals into small achievable ones makes total sense.

I mean, think about it. It’s just like eating one whole cake.

We all wish we could gobble it up in one swallow, right? But it’s almost physically unattainable. Unless you’re a dragon, of course.

There are very few, really amazing people who could do it (and I reek of pure envy when I see them.) But most of us just have to rely on a knife and a fork and our hands to break down that cake into an easily consumable slice. Or five. Most likely five.

Applying that delicious analogy to goals: when you break down your big goal to smaller, more achievable goals, all you have to deal with is one piece of cake at a time! And isn’t that easier and FUN??

What to do: Break down your Big Goal into smaller achievable goals. For example, if you want to finish an 80k-word novel in 90 days, you can make small daily goals of 900 words every day. Think NaNoWriMo. And if your Big Goal is world domination, you could break it down to conquering one country — or even one city — at a time. Make use of the W-questions – who, what, why, where, when.

Remember your intentions

Intentions used to sound lowkey woo-woo before but a lot of people emphasize on its importance now for a reason.

Knowing your intentions is gonna be a good foundation to setting, and ultimately reaching, your goals. It’s just as Grandma Tala keeps telling Moana. It’s just like cloud Mufasa’s poetic message to Simba: You have to know who YOU are. Remember where you come from. Your goals root from an urge deep inside you. That root is your intention. Moana said it best: it CALLS you. And so remembering your intention will help you keep track of your goals and guide you to the direction you need to go.

What to do: Write your intention and tack it somewhere you can see everyday. Maybe it’s in the bathroom mirror or your closet door or your work desk or your bookshelf. Bonus tip: make it F-U-N! Take out your watercolors and brushes and do an awesome typography of it. So it won’t look like your professor’s or boss’s super formal memo. (Which, let’s be honest here, is lowkey yish.)

Schedule everything and take action

This is the part that will appeal to your inner General Li Shang: let’s get down to business!

Now that you’ve broken down your goals and remembered your intentions, it’s time to whip out your pen and paper (and the washi tapes and color markers, obvs.) And map out your goal-setting strategy — or if you already did this back in January 1st, review your plan. Revise accordingly and immediately get to work!

Nadalie Bardo of It’s All You Boo has this brilliant goal-setting tip: spend 20% of your time planning and 80% of it slaying the heck out of those goals. And that means taking action. Taking conscious and deliberate action. Because the plans? They’re necessary, sure. But they won’t help you in reaching your goals much if you don’t do the physical work. Remember Shia’s angry motivational cry? Yep. DO IT.

What to do: Make a goal-reaching plan and follow through STAT. Make use of Nadalie’s 20:80 rule.

I use her very own Slay Your Goals planner to keep track of my monthly goals and the New Things I hope to do this year.

It’s a 60-plus-page stationery heaven with a pre-goal planning chapter for establishing your intentions. This one I especially loved filling in because spending a good chunk of my free time mulling over what ignites my soul and sparks a light inside me is practically one of my favorite hobbies. This planner is thought-provoking like that.

But you know what’s the best part? Motivational quotes on every.freakin.page! YAS GURL.

Have an accountability buddy

Supporting yourself is good and all but sometimes we need an outside intervention. For this to happen, you have to share your goals to someone.

Some people like to share it somewhere public, like in Twitter, because they want to be held accountable by their peers and followers. But okay okay, I understand if you don’t want to shout out your goals to the entire world. Even I don’t. I’m quite superstitious like that.

But remember those MVP friends you have? The ones you told about Your Most Embarrassing 7th Grade moment and laughed their butts off for a good hour or so but was still there? Or the ones you told about your deepest, darkest secrets and who have seen you at your lowest? Or the ones who don’t sugarcoat anything to you? And in spite all that, they stayed?

You can tell them, no doubt about that.

These awesome for-keeps friends will help you keep going even when you begin to feel like your goal is a piece of nonsense crap that won’t solve global warming. Because not only will they hold you accountable, they will be your personal cheerleaders too!

What to do: Reach out to the most no-nonsense people you know. Those who won’t accept excuses and easily sympathize to your silly reasons. This will be hard. Believe me, there will come a time when you will looowkey regret asking them to be your accountability buddy. But that lowkey regret will be nothing once you reached that goal and will be eternally grateful to them 🙂

Give yourself a little more compassion

You know what’s one of the biggest obstacles we face when we embark on the journey of reaching a goal? OURSELVES.

I know. Shocker, isn’t it.

But really, the fear living inside you can be such a powerful villain in your story. It’s, like, much more powerful than Voldemort and rotten cheese combined. It will creep into your mind faster than the smell of rotten cheese can reach your nose.

It probably doesn’t even have to creep into your mind because it’s already there.

And one of fear’s superpowers? To make your dreams and goals less enticing than they were the first time. To make them look like an utter piece of crap that won’t be helpful to anyone. Fear does this by utilizing how much we dread failure. So cut yourself some slack. Give yourself a little more compassion. Remind yourself that reaching your goal has a purpose and that it will be helpful.

Forgive yourself when you couldn’t do a 360-day goal in thirty days. Most of us can’t and that’s fine. You have 300 days left, more or less. Fight on, yeah? Yeah!

I WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!

What’s your progress in reaching your goals? Is your motivation currently dwindling? What are you doing to keep yourself motivated? Share them all below!

PS: Check out how to achieve the Big Goals

LOVE THIS POST? DON’T FORGET TO PIN IT!

Photo from Ivory Mix

February 17, 2018 11 Comments