Happy October! We have about 90 days left in the calendar year. So now is the time to do a goal check-in. You need to celebrate how far you’ve come this year, and decide what you’re going to achieve before 31 December.

Now is a great time to review, refine, celebrate and toss your goals.

But first, remember that a goal is not a habit. Your habits support your achievement of goals.

Review Your Goals

To do this, you’ll want to pull our your journals and diaries. You may want to have a separate notebook to record the goals you had back in January, and from the last two times we did check ins back in April and July.

How well did you do over the past 90 days?

Did anything pop up that derailed you from working on your goals? Were there any habits that helped you stay focused?

Did anything happen since January that may change what goals you do want to achieve?

Then create a list of the goals you achieved. For the rest of the goals, make note if they were personal goals, health goals, career goals, relationship goals, money goals, or however you wish to categorize them.

What Should You Celebrate

Spend some time reviewing all that you’ve done so far this year. Then decide on some kind of reward for achieving all that you’ve done.

Maybe you will schedule a pedicure or a special drink out with a special friend. Maybe you should schedule a full body massage especially before the stressful holidays.

The important thing here is to only focus on what you did achieve. Do not let your brain start beating yourself up for what you didn’t do.

It’s important that you celebrate your achievements, even if they’re small. It helps you get momentum and gives your brain that nice little boost you need to keep going.

What Should You Keep

You should keep the goals that you’re currently working on and are seeing momentum. If your goal is to work out five days a week and you’re up to four, keep going!

You should also keep the goals that have events coming up in the next 90 days. For example, if you’ve got a professional goal to present to the upper management, and you have it scheduled, then you will continue to work on building up your speech giving skills by continuing to go to ToastMasters or giving smaller presentations where you can.

If you wanted to get a professional certificate, and you’re still taking classes, then keep that on your goal list as well.

Try not to have too many goals in each of the major categories you’ve chosen. Look objectively over the goals and what you think you can achieve in the next 90 days.

If you have a goal that’s important to you, but now is just not the right time, start a list of goals for January, and it can be at the top of your list to review.

What Should You Let Go

You should let go of any goal that isn’t really yours. You should let go of any goal that’s making you feel guilty.

For example, if people around you are telling you that you should push hard on your career and get promoted, but you are honestly happy where you’re at, then the goal of getting promoted is not truly your goal.

Right now, you’re going to declutter your goals. Often we make laundry lists of goals that we think we should do, or we read somewhere that someone else is doing and we thought it was a cool goal.

Let go of goals that are no longer (or never were) important to you.

Let’s say you wanted to learn to speak Greek and learn to cook Greek food because you were dating someone whose family lives in Greece. But maybe it didn’t work out.  You can get rid of these goals since they’re no longer important to you.

Or, you can ask yourself if you’re still interested in learning a foreign language or learning new cooking skills. Then you could modify the goals.

What Should You Modify

If you really are connected to and feeling passionate about a goal but haven’t been able to achieve it, then you probably have chosen too much to handle all at once. The next step is to look at the current goal and break down the goal into smaller parts.

For example, if you wanted to run in a marathon on New Years Day but you’re barely running a 5k right now, then maybe you adjust your goal to find a 10k instead.

If you wanted to work out five days a week but you’re lucky to get in two, reward yourself for consistently going twice a week. Then adjust your goal to three times a week.  It will be a stretch from where you’re at, and you’ll be happy that you achieved it.

Also, if you’re having difficulties achieving your goals, you should review the structure of your goal. Make sure they’re SMART:

• Specific – what exactly are you trying to do. Instead of eating healthier, you cook 75% of your meals and include fruits and vegetables with every meal.
• Measurable – you drink 6-8 glasses of water a day.
• Actionable – instead of write a novel, you spend 35-45 min 5 days a week writing.
• Realistic – you’re not going to lose 13kg in the 30 days before a class reunion. You can choose a more realistic number like 4.5-5kg and find a dress that makes you feel fabulous.
• Time – have a due date. In our case, it’s going to be between now and 31 December.

Once you’re done, it’s time to identify all of the goals you’re going to move forward with.

Create Your Plan

Take some time and look at how you should achieve each part of your goal. If you are working out two days a week and you want to get up to four days, then maybe a milestone is working out three days a week after 45 days.

Or if you have a business and want to get ten more clients over the next 90 days, then you can have a soft goal of getting one new client every 9 days. This can also be a way of tracking how well you’re doing, and allow you to make adjustments as needed.

Spend some time on each goal. Work backwards from goal achievement, and then you can decide if the goal is realistic or if it needs modifications.

Schedule Your Plan

Put your milestones into your diary. If you don’t have a diary or wall calendar that you’re currently using, you may want to look into Google calendar. You can get notifications to your smartphone or emails (or both).

Schedule time to review your goals daily, and schedule time each week to review how well the week worked for you. Then you can plan to make up anything you missed the next week to ensure you’re maintaining momentum.

And if you achieved all your mini-goals, schedule time to celebrate!

My Final Thoughts

Goal achievement should be fulfilling not overwhelming. It’s also deeply personal. Set yourself up for success instead of failure.

Sometimes we frame our goals for other people such as wanting to lose weight for your children.  Perhaps you want more energy to play with them.  Whatever the reason you’re telling yourself now, it may not be the best motivation for you.

Try to reframe the goal for yourself. Then make sure it’s a SMART goal.

Often, women have difficulties setting goals just for themselves. We feel that it’s selfish, or that we’ll stick to our path better if we’re doing it for someone else.

That’s a trap.

It can sometimes lead to resentment of the other person as well. So take personal responsibility for your goals, and make them for you.

Then review them every day or every time you’re wavering in your resolve. You won’t be perfect. Just get back on track as quickly as you can and forgive yourself.

What goal are you working on that is kind of scary but very exciting to you when you achieve it?