Having a personal vision is essential to leading a fulfilling life. A vision provides direction and purpose, helping you to set goals and stay motivated. However, a vision is not something that can simply be pulled out of thin air. In order to be effective, it needs to be specific. That means that your goals should be clearly defined, and your plan for achieving them should be well thought out. While this may seem like a lot of work, taking the time to develop a strong personal vision will pay off in the long run by being the guiding light when sometimes us women feel lost. With a clear sense of what you want to achieve, you'll be better equipped to make better decisions, stay on track, and ultimately achieve your dreams.
In our previous blog, 5 Effective Ways to Create Your Vision, we outlined useful tools that will help you develop your vision. In our experience, each person has their own way to develop their vision. Finding the way that works for you will be the first step in building a long-term roadmap for yourself.
After you have found the tool that works for you, now it is time to use an effective strategy to bring those visions to life. In our practice, we recommend using the S.M.A.R.T. goal system.
A SMART goal is used to help guide the goal-setting of your vision. SMART is an acronym that stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely. Therefore, a SMART goal incorporates all of these attributes to assist focus your efforts and increase the chances of achieving your goals within your vision.
Specific
Being specific with your goals helps give your more clarity on what you want to accomplish. Maybe you are looking to lose weight to feel healthier. A specific goal would be to lose 20 pounds. The more specific, the better.
Measurable
Enabling a way for you to track the progress of your goal shows you how effective you are at accomplishing your goal. Making goals without metrics of success can be discouraging since accomplishments are not as clear. For example, maybe you want to eat healthier and reduce the amount of fast food you purchase. Making a clear and measurable goal of only purchasing fast food once a month will help set the metric of success.
Achievable
Being able to attain the goal is an important part of the visioning process. Recognizing what is needed to reach this goal will help you build out your plan to accomplish the goal. Reviewing current resources or additional things needed is key to making the action plan clear.
Relevant
Committing to a goal that is realistic is an important part of the process. Setting the bar too high, like defeating your social anxiety in one month's time could put too much pressure on yourself. Good goals that are reasonable to accomplish are set up to challenge you over a healthy period of time.
Time-bound
This attribute is our favorite! Make sure there are specific deadlines attached to your goals. This helps keep you on track and gives a realistic visual as to when the goal should be finished. Without a sense of urgency, a goal will just get accomplished when we feel like it. Attaching a start and finish date is a sure way to keep you moving toward the finish line.
Are you ready to start your S.M.A.R.T goals? Great, we have an easy-to-use worksheet to help you get your vision into action!
