Balance Your Goals, Balance Your Life

The freelancing lifestyle can throw life out of balance easily and quickly.  Between the deadlines, the marketing you need to do, and the administrative tasks to keep track of everything, it takes a lot of time each day to make it all work.  And if you’re a WAHM, you’ve got even more on your plate to throw into the mix.  Goals are easy to think of, but in the freelancing environment where you’re the ‘jack of all trades,’ are they easy to achieve?  Setting SMART goals will balance your thinking and your life.

The Elements of Balanced Goal Setting

I had heard for years that if you just write your goals down, they’ll happen.  For me though, writing them down wasn’t enough.  Sure, it kept me aware of them, but it also made me feel overwhelmed just looking at the long list of things I wanted or needed to accomplish.  Then I learned about SMART goals, and found a balanced approach that really works.

Specific:  Be very specific about what the goal is, and make sure it’s put in the positive.  Saying, ‘I want to loose 10 lbs’ is a specific goal, but it’s not in the positive.  Instead, write down what you want to weigh after you’ve lost the 10lbs.  That way, you’re focused on what you’re heading towards rather than what you’re loosing.

Measurable:  With fast food options, the goal of weighing less and being in shape are both common and admirable.  But unless you identify a way to measure the results, you won’t know when you’ve reached the goal.  Instead, state what you want to weigh, or 3 ways you’ll know you’re ‘in shape,’ such as being able to run a mile in 10 minutes or less.

Achievable:  If you want to be ‘in shape’ and you decide that running a mile in 10 minutes or less is your goal, you also have to ask yourself:  is this something I can actually do?  Everyone is different.  For some, there best mile may be 15 minutes, for others it may be 8.  Don’t judge yourself by what others have done, but by what is really right for you.

Realistic:  This is similar to achievable, but in a slightly different way.  If you decide that running a mile in 10 minutes is achievable for you, you have to decide how often you can work on it.  Is it realistic to be able to go running every day?  Or is 3 days more realistic?  What’s really going to work for you, your lifestyle, and your schedule?

Timed:  You have to have an end date.  Will you be running a 10 minute mile in 1 month?  3 months?  6 months?  You need to have a time in the future when you evaluate your progress and update your goal.  This will also help you learn from your experience and create new goals for the future. 

The Key to Balanced Goal Setting

If you only use the SMART technique above, you’ll be reaching your goals in a way that really works for you much more often and with a much more balanced approach.  But there is one more element I’d like to add to make this process fun and enjoyable too:  Reward Yourself.

For every successful step you take towards your goal, reward yourself in some way.  We’re human too, and the more we reward ourselves for the behaviors we want to repeat, the more likely it becomes that we’ll repeat them.  So reward yourself as often as possible for the things you want to accomplish again and again.

Be SMART and take a balanced approach to goal setting in your business.  You’ll be relieved at the results.