To achieve success in any area of life, we must set goals to make ourselves accountable and maintain motivation to accomplish those goals. We have all experienced the feeling of saying “I’m going to do _______” and shortly realize we are not on track to accomplish that goal. Time passes and we wonder why we never accomplished what we set for ourselves when we had such enthusiasm and determination. We could be the most determined, but without applying a set plan on how to achieve a goal, it will almost always never become a reality.

My personal experience with my accomplishments have always been paired with an unshakable fire that annoys the hell out of me until I obtain those accomplishments. Most of my goals have taken me years to achieve, but I also set small goals every single day. My larger accomplishments include graduating with my undergrad in no more than four years (I couldn’t wait to start my career and refused to be a fifth year senior), becoming debt free, and the most recent of becoming a Director within my department. My next big accomplishment will be starting my own company. My short-term goals consist of tweaking my fitness goals as different goals arise, improving my internal health, increasing knowledge, always finding new ways to improve my emotional intelligence, and so much more. The even smaller goals are my day-to-day tasks that are just redundant necessary tasks and others that support the larger goals.

It’s extremely important that whatever we do on a day-to-day basis, we must add small tasks that keep us in line with obtaining the larger goals. It is very common to set goals around the start of each year, do nothing on a daily or weekly basis to work towards that goal, and wonder why we never did what we said we were going to do. We become discouraged, feel like a failure, and probably don’t feel motivation to pick it back up to try again. Advice: work to never set yourself up for any failure in life and never set goals that are unrealistic.

Each day, I have a fresh post-it note that I use to write down everything I want to accomplish by the time I go to bed that night. They are all things that I can realistically cross off the list by the end of the day. I find pleasure in taking the pen and striking off each task; it motivates me to continually cross off more items. In addition to my daily post-its, I also include a weekly list. I also do the same for things that will take me the next six months to check off. These post-its live in my physical agenda (yes, I’m super old school) and I look at it everyday to keep myself accountable. I know that if I use digital calendars or lists, I won’t be as efficient. I like tangible agendas, physical notes that I can physically mark off. Everyone is different in their methods. Days that I don’t contribute to any of my set goals or days that I don’t set new goals feel like empty days. I live for accomplishments, all big and small. This is my style. Another tradition that I have committed to each year is creating my annual vision board. This is my way of staying relevant to my bigger picture.

I want to know what your style is. How do you keep yourself motivated to reach your goals? And what do you do when you don’t reach a goal? Was it unrealistic from the start? Did you drop the ball? How? And what is your plan to pick it back up? I want to know! Comment below.