{"id":366,"date":"2017-12-30T22:19:07","date_gmt":"2017-12-30T22:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/upgifs.com\/blog\/?p=366"},"modified":"2021-06-22T08:26:00","modified_gmt":"2021-06-22T08:26:00","slug":"9-ways-to-stay-focused-on-your-personal-growth-goals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/upgifs.com\/blog\/366\/9-ways-to-stay-focused-on-your-personal-growth-goals\/","title":{"rendered":"9 Ways to Stay Focused on Your Personal Growth Goals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At least 41% of Americans set a New Year&#8217;s resolution every year.<\/p>\n<p>With New Year&#8217;s around the corner, you may be thinking about your own personal growth goals.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to achieve your goals, you&#8217;ll need to commit to focusing on those goals. After all, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/new-years-resolutions-courses-2016-12\">80% of people<\/a> who set New Year&#8217;s resolutions have already failed by February.<\/p>\n<p>Luckily, we&#8217;ve got some great tips to help you focus on your goals so you&#8217;ll have a better chance of achieving them. Here are nine ways to stay focused on your personal growth goals.<\/p>\n<h2>1. Define Your Goals<\/h2>\n<p>Setting goals is a fundamental part of achieving them. This may sound simple. Oftentimes, though, people set undefined, vague goals and then wonder why they haven&#8217;t achieved them.<\/p>\n<p>If you only have a vague idea of what you actually want, how can you focus on achieving it?<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re going to set a goal, you need to take the time to define that goal. Grab a pen and a piece of paper and write down exactly what you want. You may only have one goal, or you may have five.<\/p>\n<p>Either way, use basic, focused language. Next to each goal, write exactly why you want to complete this goal.<\/p>\n<p>For example, if you&#8217;ve been wanting to lose weight for a long time, set a specific goal. Maybe your goal is to lose 20 pounds by March. Write this down, and then write why you want to lose this weight. Maybe you&#8217;re tired of not fitting in your clothes or you&#8217;re having health problems.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever the case, defining your personal growth goals is a critical component when it comes to achieving them.<\/p>\n<h2>2. Remove Distractions<\/h2>\n<p>What&#8217;s keeping you from achieving your goals?<\/p>\n<p>Maybe you&#8217;ve always wanted to write a novel, but every time you set down to write, you end up on social media instead. Perhaps you&#8217;re trying to <a href=\"https:\/\/upgifs.com\/blog\/291\/5-online-tools-to-make-small-business-owners-lives-easier\/\">start a business<\/a>, but you keep getting distracted by your favorite TV show.<\/p>\n<p>Staying focused on your personal growth goals is all about removing outside distractions. That means getting rid of the things that don&#8217;t help you achieve those goals.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t worry&#8211;TV and social media will still be there when you&#8217;re finished.<\/p>\n<h2>3. Measure Your Goals<\/h2>\n<p>You&#8217;ve probably heard of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.projectsmart.co.uk\/smart-goals.php\">S.M.A.R.T goal setting<\/a>. Your goals should be:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Specific<\/li>\n<li>Measurable<\/li>\n<li>Achievable<\/li>\n<li>Realistic<\/li>\n<li>Time-based<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This allows you to set up milestones and know when you&#8217;re close to meeting your goals.<\/p>\n<p>When you set your goal, you can decide how you&#8217;ll quantify success. Maybe it&#8217;s raising a specific amount of money, getting a certain number of clients, or running a marathon.<\/p>\n<p>Whatever it is, setting a measurable goal allows you to track that goal and honestly know where you stand as you try to meet it.<\/p>\n<h2>4. Talk About Your Goals<\/h2>\n<p>Talking about your personal growth goals is an excellent way to keep them top of mind. Plus, it helps keep you accountable as friend and family members ask how you&#8217;re going.<\/p>\n<p>Once you&#8217;ve set your goals, regularly tell people about them. Let them know if you&#8217;re making progress, or even if you need some help.<\/p>\n<p>This also helps you avoid sabotaging yourself. You&#8217;ll have people who will know if you&#8217;re doing things that are making it more difficult for you to meet your goals.<\/p>\n<h2>5. Meditate<\/h2>\n<p>Do you suffer from monkey mind? It can be difficult to focus on your goals when your mind seems to be running 100 miles an hour in different directions.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, mindfulness and meditation have gained in popularity. People are realizing the benefits of &#8220;tuning out&#8221; and paying attention to the present.<\/p>\n<p>Just 10 minutes of meditation or mindfulness a day can have incredible benefits. Check out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.headspace.com\/\">Headspace<\/a>, which makes meditation easy and can give you back the focus you need.<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;re not the app type, just try to sit in silence for five or ten minutes.<\/p>\n<h2>6. Remove All Vices<\/h2>\n<p>Vices aren&#8217;t the same as distractions. Distractions are social media, TV, or the party next door. Vices are the types of things you turn too when you really don&#8217;t want to work.<\/p>\n<p>Once you begin removing them, you&#8217;ll notice you have much more focus available to achieve your personal growth goals.<\/p>\n<p>If you tend to eat when you&#8217;re stressed, or you&#8217;re a smoker or drinker, start by removing these vices. You&#8217;ll soon see when you begin craving them and also when you have no cravings.<\/p>\n<p>Often, those cravings will hit right when you&#8217;re working towards your goals.<\/p>\n<h2>7. Delegate Personal Responsibility<\/h2>\n<p>How often do we take personal responsibility for the things that go wrong in our lives? It&#8217;s important to recognize that your ability to achieve your goals is your personal responsibility.<\/p>\n<p>You have two choices: Accept things the way they are, or take responsibility for changing them.<\/p>\n<p>Once you acknowledge that you&#8217;re the only one responsible for your actions and decisions, you&#8217;ll find it much easier to focus on your goals.<\/p>\n<h2>8. Acknowledge Resistance to Change<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/pulse\/episode-5-why-your-brain-hates-change-marcel-wilson\/\">Your brain hates change<\/a>. It assumes that any changes are a threat and will do anything it can to discourage you from changing your ways.<\/p>\n<p>One of the best things you can do to focus on your goals is to acknowledge this. Make a list of all of the ways you&#8217;re rewarded by changing your ways.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s often a sense of security when it comes to the habits that don&#8217;t actually serve you. Letting go of these things can be challenging, but will make it much easier to achieve your personal growth goals.<\/p>\n<h2>9. Discard Limiting Beliefs<\/h2>\n<p>You probably have ingrained beliefs about who you are and what you are (and are not) capable of.<\/p>\n<p>These beliefs form your self-image and can make it difficult to focus on your goals. You also use these beliefs to form assumptions about whether or not you&#8217;ll actually achieve those goals.<\/p>\n<p>For personal growth, it&#8217;s crucial that you regularly evaluate these beliefs to see whether they&#8217;re serving you or limiting you.<\/p>\n<h2>Ready to Meet Your Personal Growth Goals?<\/h2>\n<p>The above tips will help you break through the noise and focus on your goals.<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t forget to write your goals down and track your progress. Hopefully, you&#8217;ll have achieved some or all of those goals by this time next year.<\/p>\n<p>Want to learn more about personal growth? Check out our latest <a href=\"https:\/\/upgifs.com\/blog\/category\/self-improvement-posts\/\">self-improvement blog posts.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At least 41% of Americans set a New Year&#8217;s resolution every year. With New Year&#8217;s around the corner, you may be thinking about your own personal growth goals. If you&hellip; <span class=\"read-more-span\"><a href=\"https:\/\/upgifs.com\/blog\/366\/9-ways-to-stay-focused-on-your-personal-growth-goals\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;9 Ways to Stay Focused on Your Personal Growth Goals&#8221;<\/span> <span class=\"genericon genericon-next\"><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/upgifs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/upgifs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/upgifs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upgifs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upgifs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/upgifs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22189,"href":"https:\/\/upgifs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions\/22189"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upgifs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/upgifs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upgifs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upgifs.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}