My S.M.A.R.T. Goals – Getting to Where I Want to Be

Image Courtesy of Heidi Powell

The recent hiccup in my life has left me with a new found passion for life. I have realized that for far too long now I have just been content with mediocrity and not driven to take the things from life that I want. All of these self-realizations have made me think long and hard on what I want to do with myself. With any life change it really pushes you to better yourself or be lost. I don’t want to feel lost anymore so I have been working to set myself up for success. In order to get to where I want to be I have decided it’s time to set some goals for myself to help pave the road I’d like to go down for my future. 

S.M.A.R.T. Goals

For those of you that are not familiar with the S.M.A.R.T. anagram it stands for smart, measurable, attainable, relevant and time-bound. Over time I have realized how much easier it is to reach a goal when those parts come in to play. They make you hold yourself more accountable for reaching them. My goals will constantly evolve as I learn more and more about myself but these are the ones that are important to me now.

Goals for 2013 Fall-2014 Summer

• Complete my web developer certification
• Work out 4x’s a week
• Travel to a foreign country
• Save $9000
• Make $4000 in side hustle income (to go towards savings)
• Relearn Sign Language
• Read 1 book per month
• Move to Dallas!

How I Plan on Getting There

I have plenty more but adding too many to the list will become overwhelming and will prevent me from reaching any of them. Baby steps are necessary in order to reach goals. I look at it as being similar to Dave Ramsey’s snowball method. Attain the smallest goal first and then roll that energy in to the next largest task. My smallest task (though it may not be to some) is working out 4x a week because that is something I’ve already been doing. The only part of that goal is maintaining. My next most tedious task to tackle is going to be my web developer certification. This isn't too much of a challenge for me but it is very time consuming. I also believe that a good way to reaching your goals is to keep somewhat of a progress report to allow yourself to see the progress you’ve made.

Progress Report

• 2 weeks until completion of 1^st class – a ways to go but getting there!
• Killing it on my workouts – A Transformation Tuesday picture should be in the works soon I’m thinking
• I haven’t decided where but I know I want to have this completed pretty soon too. Perhaps cruise for the bday?  
• I am 11% there on the savings… It’s a start
• None yet, at least none that I’m counting. Garage sales starting this weekend and then Ebay here I come
• I have been doing some refreshing on sign language thanks to Pinterest; I need my signing buddy. Krr 
• Does anyone have any suggestion for my book for the month? No romance novels please. 
• This goal will probably be closer to Summer 2014 unfortunately but all depends on the progress of my savings.

What goals are you reaching for? Any tips on keeping up the momentum?