Life is a weird and wonderous thing. Do you ever feel like time has sped up and slowed down at the same time? I mean, who can believe that it’s almost the middle of February! I can’t, that’s for sure. And, something tells me that you might not be able to either.

It’s funny because I thought that I’d have my plan made for 2024 by now. Did you? To be honest, I usually don’t make a plan much at all. I just kind of go with it, but this year I wanted to be more intentional about what I’m doing. Set goals for things to do and place to go. You know all that jazz. Turns out it’s not as easy as I imagined.

The one thing that I do do is anytime an idea comes to mind for pretty much anything, I put it on my digital calendar immediately, unless of course I’m out with friends or something else that would make it look weird. Then, I set the reminder date for a week away. If the notification comes the next week, and I still want to pursue it, or even remember what it was, let’s be honest, I set it out for another week, and I go from there.

This is a great way to remind myself of what I want to do, but not necessarily make the plans to do it. You see where the disconnect might be? To me it’s starting to look like a chasm the size of the Grand Canyon. I have so many ideas hopping from week to week with no end in sight. So, I’ve actually looked into how to make the transition from making notes about what I want to actually do to turning those things into a reality.

There are literally almost two million articles about this very thing, so I know I’m, we’re, not alone in this. But, a lot of the articles are long and a bit unwieldy to delve into, I mean, who has time to read through super long articles that seem to drag on just so you stay on the page? Apparently I do, all in the name of condensing the information down into, actually, four steps. Easy steps? Not sure, it depends on how you look at it, but definitely doable.

So here goes.

Step number 1 is, drum roll please, define your goal. Seems easy enough, but is it? Defining it is just figuring out what your goal is, putting a dark, thick line around it so you can see what it is, then looking closer so you can see all the shadowy bits in the middle that need to get done. By looking at the shadowy bits and making sense of them, it’s easier to figure out the steps that need to be done to get to your goal.

That leads us to step number 2. Set a timeline to achieve what you want to do. That means not only the end date, but, the in between dates too. Take each little shadowy part of your goal that you’ve broken down into concrete steps that need to be done and give each of those steps a timeline. So, basically set your end date for your final goal, then work backwards from there setting each date and time to achieve the in between steps. Make sure to set a realistic timeline for you to get all the little bits done.

Which leads us to step number 3, make sure those shadowy bits that need to get done are can actually get done in your timeline. Put simply, break everything down into small enough pieces that you can do them in your allocated time frame. Be honest and realistic about how much time each will take you. This is not the place for airy fairy, unhinged from reality, creative thinking, this is the place for concrete reality. If something takes a little longer to accomplish, don’t look at that as a failure in the path of achieving your goal, look at it as an opportunity to get the task done well.

Finally step number 4 is follow everything in steps 1 through 3. 😊

And, before I drag this out into another weirdly long piece about goal setting, I’m going to bid you adieu with the reminder that everything we want to accomplish is set in motion with one step forward. So, make it a lurch if you must, but take that step.

Until next time…