MaXIMIze - Intentions and Goals

In our office safety meeting last month, I gave a presentation that included the following information:

Recognizing your sphere of control, your sphere of influence, and those things outside of both that you can do nothing about. Once you realize the only person you can truly control is yourself - and that is where you should put your energy, and you can make the distinctions of control and influence, you can let go of that which you can't control and focus on that which you can.

This will help with setting intentions and being able to achieve your goals.

Another thing that helps with doing this is being able to set realistic goals. Realistic goals follow the SMART model:

Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Results-Focused
Time-Bound

Examples I gave included losing weight, saving money, posting to this blog, and publishing a book or several books based on the my posts from 2012 to 2017. Each of those is broad enough to be considered an intention, until you apply the SMART model to it. We'll use losing weight as an example:

Intention: Lose Weight

Specific - how much weight? 20 pounds

Measurable - Did you meet your goal at the end? Are there milestones you can set/track?

Achievable - is this achievable during the timeframe set?

Results-Focused - Are you making progress toward your goal in the timeframe set? If not, what do you need to do to get back on track and move forward? Or, do you need to readjust your target?

Time-Bound - By when? December 2018

Once you've laid out your intention, and turned it into a goal (or goals, depending), then you can focus on the actions you need to take in order to work toward the desired result. Those are the concrete, measurable steps you can take and track in order to meet your goals. One foot in front of the other, as the saying goes!

Also, in order to reach your goals, you want to focus on reward, not punishment. You want to recognize your milestones along the way, and celebrate those successes. And, if you fall behind, you want to simply start again by getting back up and taking it one day at a time. If need be, reassess your goals and adjust them.

I will close this post with something I found on Twitter today, posted by Mindfulness Wellness (@HealingMB):

S - see your goal
U - understand the obstacles
C - create a positive mental picture
C - clear your mind of self-doubt
E - embrace all challenges
S - sacrifice free time
S - show the world you can do it
F - feed your focus
U - utilize all opportunities
L - learn from all failures

Coming up in future posts, we will talk about Manifesting Your Vision!

Until next time, Namaste!