Are you always setting yourself goals and then feeling bad when you fail to achieve them?
Do you struggle to know what you even want to achieve?
Is your journal full of good intentions and empty habit trackers?
You’re not alone!
It’s easy to start off the new year with a lofty goal of running a marathon, de-cluttering your entire house, or learning to play a musical instrument from scratch… It’s much harder to translate that goal into regular habits and keep up the momentum for a long period of time.
Don’t worry, Oops a Daisy is here to help!
It’s time to MAKE IT HAPPEN!
Why Do Our Goals Fail?
The most common reason we see goals being abandoned is that they are not SMART. In this context, SMART stands for:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-bound
Luckily we have a blog post all about making your goals SMART, here!
But the general idea is that instead of “learn a musical instrument”, you would re-word your goal to something like “learn to play 3 full songs on the guitar by 31st December”.
Although your goal is the same, the wording of it means you are now able to track whether or not you have achieved it by your chosen date. It also makes it easier to break the larger goal down into smaller tasks, which you can track (Measure!) in your journal. E.g. Learning one song every 4 months.
If you use the SMART template, there’s no reason you shouldn’t be able to achieve your goals!
Why Do We Leave Trackers Empty?
We’ve all done it… Created a load of trackers in our journal spreads only to leave them empty every week, and then felt bad and unmotivated to carry on.
There are a few reasons why this might be happening…
Make it Visible
It may sound obvious, but as well as providing visual feedback of your progress, trackers also act as a reminder for us to actually do the task.
Adding a yearly tracker at the front of your journal is a nice way to see an overview of your progress, but if you keep forgetting to refer to it, you will probably forget to do your task as well!
Try moving your trackers to your monthly or weekly spreads so they act as a reminder throughout the day as you are using your journal.
Make Time
If the visibility of your tracker isn’t the issue, but you still aren’t completing your habits, you may simply not have enough time in your day!
Luckily, you have a journal to help you! Creating a weekly spread with times down the left-hand side can help you divide your day by hours, and schedule time in to do your activity and track it in your journal. Many people check in with their journals last thing at night before they go to bed, and this is the perfect time to tick off all those habits!
Make it Specific
If you didn’t make your initial goal fit the SMART system, then it’s possible that your habits are too vague, preventing you from ticking them off.
For example, if you want to track your guitar practice every day but you haven’t specified how long you want to practice for, then you might be discouraged from practicing at all because you feel like you don’t have time. In reality, just 5 minutes of practice a day will contribute massively to a larger goal if done consistently.
So, instead of ‘practice guitar’, simply name your tracker ‘5 mins of guitar’ and make it easy for yourself!
Make it Happen!
Still feel like you need a bit of help?
Setting goals and actually making them happen is the focus of this year’s 12 Days of Planning Advent box, along with some super handy stationery items to help you plan, set, track and achieve all your goals for 2025.
There’s still time to get involved and set yourself up for success in 2025, no matter how big or small your goals are!
(There’s also the added bonus of opening 12 individual stationery goodies each day throughout the Christmas and New Year period!)
Find out more about our 12 Day of Planning Advent Box here!
