How to make lasting changes in your life! 

SMART goals. 

S Specific 

M Measurable 

A Achievable 

T Time-Bound 

Specific, you must look at your overall goals and begin to break them down in to specific steps. For example, you want to open your own business, but first you must come up with a business name, then set up the website, then establish the LLC, then the emails, then…. But you must start with the specific name first (I use this example out of personal experience!) 

Measurable, the goal must have an end. Sticking with the example of starting a business, you set the goal of naming your business so you can move forward with the rest of the steps, so you name the business by the end of the way. The way a measurable goal helps is that you have an end result, you measure it buy completing the task. 

Achievable, the goal must not be too large. To grand. The goal has to be something you can accomplish in a specific time. Sticking to the business starting goals, once you have named the business you can set up the email and start with the LLC registration. But in the achievable part, you continue to break these down to small parts to accomplish the task, you can not do them all at once. 

Time-bound,  the goal must have an end time. For example, sitting down and setting weekly goals (to achieve by Friday) are the small steps, and a monthly goal to achieve by the end of the month. Again with the business example, the big goal is to have a business launched by the end of the month, the weekly goals being the small attainable goals to get to the end of the month large goal, so the name, the email the LLC, business cards. 

SMART goals can be applied across your life. For example, the Goal is weight loss, but you need to make small changes to make the healthier lifestyle easier to maintain. So for the month of December each week you can piggyback on the success of the previous, and by the end of the month you will have 4 new habits. Week one could be 15 min of exercise daily (more specific could be 2 days of pilates to days of free weights). Next week the goal could be the 15 min of exercise and add Daily fruit with your lunch and dinner to increase your fiber and fullness. The 3rd week you will be working on the 2 goals and you add a third of decreasing your sodas to 2 a day (if that's a problem for you) and the final week of the month you add in a pantry clean out to decrease your consumption of ultra processed items. Now imagine when you look at your achievements for the month how good you will feel at changing habits for 4 weeks straight. Would you have achieved your 10 lb goal yet, possibly not, but you will have achieved lasting change. 

I hope this helps in your journey to change and growth! 

Here is a link to help (and reference) . https://www.mindtools.com/a4wo118/smart-goals