Resolutions Suck. Goal Setting is Awesome.

Resolutions set you up for failure. Every year you may resolve to lose 20lbs, but unless you have a plan on getting there, you’re just going to feel guilty about breaking your resolution.

Screw Resolutions, Set Goals. <~~~ Tweet that.

Goal setting is crucial for getting what you want out of your business (and life). There really isn’t any other way to produce real lasting change. Rewind your life and look closely at anything you’ve achieved, becoming a Yoga Teacher for example… The steps you took could have looked something like this: Step 1: Develop yoga practice. Step 2: Find a Teacher Training Program that’s suitable for me. Step 3: Complete 200hr Teacher Training Program. Step 4:  Practice teaching.  Step 5: Get teaching gig. Maybe you wrote all that down on a piece of paper, maybe not, either way, you  thoroughly planned and executed goal behind becoming a yoga teacher. Goal setting is important, yo! Here’s why:

Clarity

Goal setting gives you clarity about what you want. Most of us have vague desires floating around in our heads. If you don’t set down in concrete terms exactly what you want, you’ll end up spinning your wheels and getting nothing done. You actually create your goals twice – once in your mind and once later in reality. The clearer the vision in your mind, the easier it is to formulate concrete steps that will get you there.

Responsibility

When you set down a goal and start working toward it, you give yourself a sense of responsibility to see it through. You can easily understand that whether or not you attain your goal has little to do with outside influence and everything to do with your attitude and actions. You can no longer blame others for your failure to get what you want. This is totally empowering. You become solely accountable.

Action

If you set your goal well, it will give you a concrete action plan. Wishing for things to happen doesn’t do this. You have to get off your meditation pillow and actually hustle. You know that you have to get started today and take small steps toward your eventual target. An important part of the goal setting process is breaking up your goals into smaller goals and a daily action plan that will get you there.

Motivation

Shit goes wrong. Without a goal, how do you stay on target, especially when things get royally effed up? Making daily progress toward your goal through your action plan gives you the motivation to keep going. You can see how far you’ve come and you know that it would totally suck to turn back. For lots of peeps, simply putting your goal into words and getting started is a great motivator.

Focus

Without laser-sharp focus, you’re unlikely to ever achieve great things in your life. You’re just going through the motions. Having a goal and plan for achieving it keeps you completely focused on what you need to do in order to get there. I totally fall victim to the shiny object syndrome, but it’s much harder to be distracted or led astray by shiny objects when you’re focused on a specific goal. If you set goals, you know exactly where to put your energy each day to get it done. Decisions begin to make themselves.

One Goal at a Time

Goal setting is important but there’s a right and wrong way to do it. Like any skill, it’s something you need to learn and practice. Most people don’t learn from their goal-setting mistakes and they continually struggle to attain the goals they desire. You’re motivated and you’ve got lots of changes you want to make in your life or business, but ease up killer!  You wouldn’t guide a yoga newb into headstand in their first class, would you? {if you would, you need your teaching cred revoked} Take it one goal at a time. Be reasonable. Choose which is most important to you and focus on it. Let the others wait. Once you’re in the groove with the first goal, think about adding another. Don’t burn yourself out by tackling too many, you’ll just end up feeling shitty in the end!