Most people, at one time or another, have found themselves wandering off the path they had envisioned for themselves. Perhaps they wanted to get fit and lose weight, but after a couple of months, they went back to old habits and put those pounds they managed to shed back on. Maybe they wanted an exciting, fulfilling career in nursing, but are now working in an office. Just because you have not achieved the things you want so far, doesn’t mean you can’t get there in the end. Here are some simple tips for getting your life back on track.
Evaluate What You Want from Your Life
As you are not in the place you want to be in life, this is the ideal opportunity to start again and re-evaluate those goals. You want to think carefully about all the areas of your life and if you are happy, or if you can improve them. Give yourself the freedom to aim high and look at any possibilities you can imagine. For example, are you happy with your job? Do you want to live in a different area or country? Once you have thought about all aspects of your life, you can decide what you want to keep doing, and where you want to start making changes.
Set Yourself Goals
Setting goals in life are the perfect way to get your life back on track. However, the way you set and review your goals is as important as the goals themselves. Most people have things that they would ‘like’ to do, or places they ‘wish’ they could go, but these aren’t definitive goals that you can work towards. Firstly, take the list things you want from your life and turn them into specific goals. You want a new job, or you want a new relationship, these are then the specific challenges that you have set yourself which will make it a lot easier to manage.
Make Your Goals Achievable
Although you can set any goal in life that you want, you also want to keep your motivation high because this way, you won’t lose focus. To do this, you need smaller goals along the way that you can achieve and keep yourself on track. If you want to change jobs, then although you might ultimately want to be a nurse, there are other steps along the way that you need to take. You can make one goal to actively look for nursing jobs for one hour each day. Another could be that you will enroll in a course to help you qualify to be a nurse. These smaller goals will allow you to tick them off as you go along and give you a sense of achievement towards the bigger goals.
Give Yourself a Timeframe
One of the reasons that many people fail to meet their goals is that they don’t place a timeframe on them. That means they start to procrastinate and delay doing something until the next day and then the next. To keep yourself on track, you need to give yourself a time limit that the goal needs to be completed. For example, if you want to lose weight, give yourself a target weight and a year to complete it. You can then evaluate your goal as you go along to see if you are on track.
Allow Yourself to Have Fun Along the Way
If you are too hard on yourself, you might start to get demoralized or unhappy. To combat this, you should add some fun into the equation, so you aren’t always thinking of the ultimate goal at the end. For example, if one of your goals is to change your look, then allow yourself the opportunity to have some fun with it. Spend some time in the stores trying on new clothes to see what suits you, you can even take some friends with you so that you can ask for advice. Try different hairstyles, makeup and perhaps even change your eye color with some contact lenses. You can read this guide to how they can change your look and which to choose. By adding fun to the process, you are achieving your goals without even realizing it.
Think Positively
Few people get the things they want from being negative; in fact, they will usually miss their goals because they don’t believe in themselves! Part of achieving your goals is to think positively about what you want and believe in yourself that you can get there. If you are struggling to achieve a positive mental attitude, then there are a few techniques you can learn to help you. You can create phrases and pin them to a board in your office or on your mirror at home. It needs to be somewhere you can see them often and reaffirm your thoughts. Once you have been doing this for a little while, you will see that it starts to improve your thoughts and makes you feel more confident about yourself.
Don’t Beat Yourself Up
Even with all of these tips, there might be some goals that you can’t quite manage to hit in the time you set. If you miss a goal, don’t get too upset, simply reset it and give it a longer timeframe or make the goal a little easier. Once you have achieved it, you can go back and continue with the original plan. The important thing is not to give up and say you can’t do it, because this will cause the whole plan to slip. Think about the bigger picture and the ultimate goal you set. Even the most successful people made mistakes, the difference is that they didn’t give up, they kept going until the achieved what they set out to do.
The most important part of the plan is getting started; this can be the part where you procrastinate the longest. However, if you start today and make your goals, you can soon be in the place you wanted or doing that dream job.
