Struggling to stick with your goals? Here’s 3 tips that can help you.
It’s May 2022. We’re almost halfway through the year!
If this realization makes you feel a little anxious or a lot freaked out, let’s take a breath together — inhale and exhale. You’re not behind, and you’re right where you need to be. 💕
If you haven’t been able to make progress towards the goals you set for yourself back in January (or maybe you didn’t set any because it feels pointless), first, you’re not alone, and you’re not a failure. Second, you’ve come to the right place. I’m gonna share with you three tips to help you get better at sticking with your goals.
If you’re wondering who the heck I am to be giving this advice, hi! I’m Mia Hemstad! I’m a mom, a self-care coach, and I live with diagnosed c-PTSD and depression. I’m really good at helping myself and other women prioritize our health, happiness, and well-being despite all the obstacles that stand in our way.
So, here are 3 tips to help you get better at sticking with your goals.
T I P #1
Build in a regular pause into your schedule.
I know this can sound… audacious. I remember when my therapist asked me, a new mom, if I had “me time.” I almost laughed out loud.
It took me almost passing out in a Trader Joe’s grocery store and a near hospital experience to realize that “me-time” wasn’t a luxury. It was a do-this-or-make-time-for-the-consequences-later necessity. I don’t say that to be scary, but rather to not sugar coat the exhausting reality that women are facing because society is so used to us never taking a freaking break.
The reality is we’re all so busy, and there’s a lot of things and people that need our attention. Sometimes it can feel like we’re being sucked into a vortex of things to do and problems to solve that we completely forget about anything we wanted to accomplish for ourselves in the first place.
But, if we want to do what’s important to us, feel more like ourselves, and not almost pass out in grocery stores, it’s ESSENTIAL that we build in a regular pause once a week or even just once a month into our schedule and protect that pause fiercely.
The purpose of what I like to call The Sacred Pause is to step outside of the all-consuming vortex of working, parenting, and paying bills, and take a look at the bigger picture of your life and be more intentional about the direction you’re headed rather than being pushed around by your task list and constantly wondering where all your time is going.
Your Sacred Pause can be as short as one hour a month (or less), which can take place after your kids go to bed, or while they’re awake and watching roughly two Doc McStuffins episodes. However you want to schedule your Sacred Pause into your life, know that it is doable, and it is sacred, so don’t let anyone or anything make you feel like you can’t have an hour to yourself 12 times a year. If there is an emergency and you have to skip it, reschedule it, girl! The same way that you reschedule other important events in your life, you can reschedule your Sacred Pause. Your time with you is really important too, and if you forget that, come back over here, and I’ll remind you. 😘
T I P #2
Ask yourself thoughtful questions and respond with pen and paper.
Ask yourself questions like:
What is it that I wish I was doing more of?
What’s been getting in the way?
How can I minimize obstacles so that I can do what’s important to me?
These simple questions can help you pinpoint what’s actually going on and what you need support with, rather than allowing your brain to continue to make up stories about why you’re struggling to make progress.
Asking these questions can be the difference between you judging yourself by believing, for example, “I’m not exercising because I’m lazy. I suck, and there’s nothing I can do about that;” and instead you could be realizing, “I’m not exercising because I haven’t slept well in months, and I have very little energy. Maybe I should plan to do a more gentle form of exercise at a time of day when I have the most energy rather than when I just wake up.”
Do you see what I mean?
If we don’t ask thoughtful questions and get curious, our brains will often default to self-judgement and fall into a shame spiral that leads to nowhere. Don’t ask me how I know. 😫 Me and Judgy-Jane are good friends. 🙄
I also suggest using a pen and paper to write down your responses to these questions because it forces you to slow down and process what you’re thinking and feeling. If you try to reflect only in your head, where everything else you’re worrying about is stored, the odds are that you’re not going to get much clarity on what you want, what’s in the way, and how you can move forward.
I know writing things down can feel painfully slow (and even give you a hand cramp), but the investment of time and effort is soooo worth the clarity you get from doing this!
T I P #3
Write down your new goals to recommit to them.
As much as I wish we could all just think our goals or say them out loud and have that work, it just doesn’t most of the time.
Writing your goals down is the way to go, and thankfully, there’s research to back this up. Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at the Dominican University in California, led a study that proved that you are 42 percent more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down. So grab a notebook, and write down what you want for yourself!
Speaking from personal experience, I have seen this simple action of writing down the things I want in my life actually help me achieve my goals again and again. Whether my goal is to move my body daily, eat more leafy greens, or write more — taking the time to write down my intentions just makes shit happen with less fuss. Yes, even with depression, anxiety, PTSD, work, and kids! If I can do it, you can too!
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Would you like more support with sticking to your self-care goals?
I host a support group every month where I help my clients do all 3 of these things I just talked about. If you’re interested, you can check out the program by clicking here.
Thank you for reading! Till next time!
