Make a Plan and Break It Down into Manageable Milestones

Setting and reaching goals is important. It keeps you moving forward in life, rather than remaining stagnant. Striving for your dreams helps to motivate you and improves your overall outlook on life. Anyone who’s made a New Year’s resolution, however, understands that goals can be overwhelmingly difficult to achieve. Add your inner critic into the mix, and it’s no surprise you sometimes feel like you’ll never find success. It doesn’t have to be that way, though.

With proper planning and progress checks through the creation of milestones, your chances of success increase greatly. Read on to find why adding milestones to your plan will help you to achieve your goals and silence your negative self-talk.

Add Accountability

A milestone is merely a check-in point on the way to your goal. When you create a goal with specific objectives, you’re able to hold yourself accountable to meeting each one. Instead of just a vague idea of what you want, you develop clear-cut steps that must be met in order to achieve it. This way, you have less of an excuse to say it just didn’t work out.

Measure Progress

How do you know if you’re making progress toward your goal if you have no means of measuring it? That’s why you should always include milestones into your goal planning. These check points allow you to determine how close you’re coming toward success. For example, if you set a goal to lose 25 pounds, try to set realistic checkpoints along the way. You could set a monthly milestone of five pounds lost, and then you’ll know whether you’re on track toward your five-month weight loss goal.

Make Adjustments

Maybe five pounds per month is too much. You might realize this if you’re truly sticking to your diet and exercise schedule, but still aren’t accomplishing your goal for the first two months. Don’t give up. Merely adjust your milestones. Shoot for three to four pounds lost by month three and go from there.

Provide Motivation

It’s much easier to keep working toward a big goal when you break it down into smaller milestones. As you achieve each one, you’ll feel more motivated to work toward the end result. Motivation is a powerful force for success. Milestones are also a great place to celebrate, which also aids in motivation. Give yourself a small reward with each milestone met, and you’ll want to keep going.

Setting goals with milestones built in is a fantastic way to silence your inner critic. You can’t give yourself negative messages when there’s tangible evidence of your success

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