5 Steps to Take Your Goals to a New Level

As a nation, we spend over $3 Trillion (Trillion with a capital T) annually on healthcare. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 75% of this goes toward the treatment of chronic disease. Medicare spends 93 cents of every dollar and Medicaid 83 cents of every dollar to treat chronic disease. Chronic disease is responsible for 7/10 deaths in this country.  Sobering right?

Our healthcare system tries to treat chronic disease as if it were an acute illness. It tries to develop a cure and to manufacture a magic pill. The reality is much of the disease we face today including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and arthritis is largely preventable. There is no cure or magic pill that the medical community can offer. The answer lies in each one of us taking control of our own health by making changes to what we put in our mouths.

Society encourages us to live beyond our means, to borrow money in order to drive a nicer car, to live in a bigger home and to get a college education. Kids graduate college today with an average of over $37,000 in debt and no guarantee of a job. Debt is considered the norm and it just piles up as the years go by.

As a nation, we have over 1 Trillion (Trillion with a capital T) in outstanding debt, with the average household $16,000 in the hole. Couple that statistic with the fact that the median retirement savings of all American families is  less than $5000 and the picture is even more grim. There is no magic wand to wave that will make the debt disappear. The answer lies in each and every one of us taking control of our finances by making changes to how we earn and spend our money.

The truth is, even small lifestyle changes can have a BIG impact on improving health, wealth and happiness. You just have to put in the work. You have to make one good decision after another to reach your goal.

• Not only can a 10 pound weight loss make your pants fit better, it can lower your blood pressure.
• If you have $16,000 in credit card debt and pay $250 per month it will take 130 months (almost 11 years) to pay it off. Increase that payment to $300 per month and it will take 89 months (less than 7.5 years) to pay it off.

It is all too easy to set goals, try really hard for a few days to address them and then get sidetracked by big or even little events. Once a kayak gets off course, it doesn’t correct itself – it needs to be brought back to its path by deliberate strokes of the paddle. When we get off track with our goals, we need to start making daily decisions that will put us back on the path. It is time to stop making excuses and start making progress!

Are you ready to take control of your health? Are you ready to take control of your finances? Are you ready to maximize your happiness?

If you want to live a strategic life, it is time to start looking at goal setting a little differently.

REACH YOUR GOAL BY TAKING THESE 5 STEPS

1.  Make sure your goal is SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Time-sensitive).
2. Uncover your BIG WHY – write down the BIG picture reason why you want to achieve your goal. You will likely need to ask yourself WHY a few times before you reach your BIG WHY.  This is the step so many of us fail to take. We say we want to lose weight or get out of debt but don’t dig deeper to make sure we know WHY this is important. When we figure out our BIG WHY, staying on course gets a whole lot easier.
3. What steps will you take day in and day out to reach your goal? This is your plan of action where you detail the steps you will take to achieve your goal.
4. What barriers will likely get in your way and how will you navigate around each one of them. Identifying barriers in advance allows you to plan for success. You won’t be surprised when they crop up because you expected them to and you are ready to side step so they don’t pull you off course.
5. How will you track your progress to measure success? How will you know when you have reached your goal so you know when to celebrate?

These 5 steps take your  general goal ideas to a whole new level. I am working on an Uncover Your BIG WHY – Reach Your Goals Worksheet that I will post soon. You will be able to download it to put this idea into action.

If you want a sneak peek at the worksheet, fill out the contact me form at the top of the page or email me at lakegirl@mylittlebluekayak.com and I will send it to you prior to posting it.

Paddle On,

Lake Girl