Be specific about your goals

Setting - and achieving - goals is all about numbers.

Saying you want to do more of something is easy to do, and hard to use for long-term improvement.

If you’re writing inconsistently, saying “I want to write more often” doesn’t really help.

Starting small is a good start. So, if you’d like to write regularly, aim for one day per week - and set the day.

“I want to write a new newsletter post every Monday.” - That’s much more specific.

So, if you’re specific - what about the numbers?

Money and fitness are hot topics. It’s easy to say “I want to work out more” or “I want to earn more”.

How do you quantify “more”? How do you know when you’ve achieved your goal?

If you don’t work out at all, a single workout session achieves your goal.

Would you carry on?

There’s a difference between starting - and having momentum.

Starting could be - “I want to start a gym membership this month, and book my first workout session.”

With this, you get the ball rolling, and see if working out is for you.

Your next goals could be:

“Book 3 workout sessions this month.”

“Find a workout schedule I can manage.”

If you start with “Work out 5 times a week” before you’ve even got started, you’re less likely to do it.

This might be why you hear about lots of people in the gym, going for runs in January - and stopping in March.

A good schedule might be: “Work out 3 times per week.”

But what’s the goal? Is it to lose weight? Build up muscle? Maintain a level of fitness? Train for a marathon?

Your schedule might not be the same for all of these goals.

And you might work out more if you’re losing weight, but less if you’re maintaining your weight - with a healthy diet.

I hope you had a good Monday. It’s a good day to think of goals for the week - even though I’m sending this post at the end of the day.

Tell me - have you set any goals this week? Or checked goals from previous weeks? How are you getting on?

Ben