55 days to go
Setting personal goals and working towards them is really important in providing benefits for us: it can help us manage our day to day routine, improve our mental health and, depending upon the goal, our physical health as well.
Giving yourself a goal provides you with a purpose both for a long term aim and also motivates you to focus on short term activities that will help you achieve it. Once you’ve committed to your goal it can help you structure your time in order to work towards it. It also means you get to prioritise some time for yourself, which is often the last thing you build into your days and weeks.
It’s important that your goal is realistic and achievable over time and you should be able to define exactly what it is. It should also be possible to measure your progress towards it and celebrate all the achievements and milestones along the way.
The term SMART goals is a way of helping you evaluate goals that are more likely to succeed.
SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-related.
Goals don’t always have to be huge. In fact it can be better to start with small goals as each one achieved will build your confidence and self-esteem enabling you to set other bigger goals.
So, whether it’s ‘ring-fencing’ 30 minutes a day for yourself to go for a walk or read quietly, learning a language, learn ballroom dancing, follow the couch to 5K running program, taking an evening class or any one of hundreds of other things that interest you, I hope you’re all able to set yourself goals for 2021 and achieve success.
Challenges make life interesting - overcoming them makes life meaningful