Daily goal setting, regurgitating known behavior

What are you doing tomorrow? What did you do today? What did you do yesterday?

I never knew how important daily goal setting was until I began adulting. Before I started taking daily goal setting seriously, I would have all good intentions for the next day. I would contemplate on what I would do, how much I could get accomplished and how effective I would be. That is until I was on my way home from work the next day and began to regurgitate my time only to realize that I could not remember one thing that I had accomplished or completed. Now that would not be difficult if I was working for someone else. I would be held accountable. However, working for myself and knowing that that empty feeling would be a direct reflection on my bank account motivated me, but it did not ignite me. 

What ignited me was being tired of feeling like I had done nothing with my life that day. Like my greatest accomplishment was waking up and driving to work and driving home.

Our feelings help motivate us, they keep us focused but can also distract us. Keeping our emotions in check is the catalyst to staying on task in daily goal setting and accomplishments. Being angry with a co-worker takes time. It renders you unproductive, or less productive. When I was in grad school and where I completed my internship, I was given the task of presenting to the group on emotions. The first time that I did this I was given approximately 10 minutes to prepare. So I snatched out my phone and began researching and writing enough to get me through that presentation. 

I was successful. That success ignited me to do more research. In doing so, I learned that there were two core emotions, fear, and love. Fear by definition is defined as an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.  Love by definition is defined as an intense feeling of deep affection, a keen interest, and pleasure in something.  

How do fear and love apply to daily goal setting? Well, I am glad you asked. When there is a fear of what could happen if we accomplished what we put on our agendas, we panic. Many times it is the unknown. We know the life that we live. We know what tomorrow brings if we do the same thing today that we did yesterday. What we do not know is if we got out of our comfort zones and began accomplishing our goals, we do not know what that new behavior could create. We do not have any idea where our lives would take us. So we sit in comfort. However many sit in the same seat day after day with no motivation, desire, intention, or method to grow, and that is okay with them. If you are that person and you’re okay with that, then this is not for you. However, if you are moving or desire to continue to grow, here are a few things I have come up with that will give you the pros and cons of daily goal setting.

In setting daily goals

You are more likely to: feel accomplished, see the right that others are doing, think positively of yourself, change distorted thinking patterns, and be a leader.

You are less likely to: feel like your life is worthless, find fault in everything around you, you know how difficult it can be to stay on task/focused, ruminate on self-defeating thoughts and behaviors, deny responsibility, or the part you played, and follow others aimlessly.

Goal setting is about feeling better about yourself. Your feelings are the DNA of your emotions. So, when you feel better you create, and when you do not, you do not.  Fear takes away from everything that you want to be and accomplish. Love will not give that back to you, but it will motivate you to get it for yourself. 

There are rules to setting goals, and I am going to keep it simple and only reiterate SMART Goals, which are specific, measurable, agreed upon, realistic, and time-based. So, if I were to give you an example of a SMART goal for me for tomorrow, it would be:

Specific - Go to the gym at 5:30 am
Measurable - Work out for 45 minutes

Agreed upon - This is usually when others are a part of the goal, but since it is only me, yes, Me, Myself, and I agree on this goal. 

Realistic - Working out for 45 minutes is realistic since I do not have to report to work until 10:00 am, and because I usually work out, 45 minutes is something that I could accomplish with no problems.

Time-based - I would have more than enough time to finish working out, return home, shower, and report to work on time.

There could be nothing worse than daily planning and never accomplishing or completing your goals, and it could simply be that the amount of time that you have allotted is not enough time to complete the task. A better solution would be to break the work down into stages where it would be reasonable to complete in the time you have.