{"id":6268,"date":"2025-01-20T16:30:43","date_gmt":"2025-01-20T16:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.blueleaf.com\/blog\/3-steps-critical-to-reaching-your-goal\/"},"modified":"2025-01-20T16:31:19","modified_gmt":"2025-01-20T16:31:19","slug":"3-steps-critical-to-reaching-your-goal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blueleaf.com\/blog\/3-steps-critical-to-reaching-your-goal\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Steps Critical to Reaching Your Goal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The calendar has turned to February. We&#8217;ve survived another month of winter, V-Day is coming up, and many people have ditched their New Year&#8217;s resolutions. People quickly give up on resolutions because they don&#8217;t properly define the goal. Resolutions often sound like this:<\/p>\n<p>Go to the gym.<br \/>\nQuit smoking.<br \/>\nVolunteer.<br \/>\nSpend more time with family.<br \/>\nOrganize stuff.<br \/>\nGrow my business.<\/p>\n<p>These goals are vague and grandiose. They&#8217;re engineered to fail. The good news? A little extra thought to properly define a goal can empower people to successfully reach their desired result. Even better news? You can define <em>your<\/em> business goal now and get started today.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.blueleaf.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/3137422976_faf68ecdd1_m.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3823 alignright\" title=\"smart goal\" alt=\"3137422976_faf68ecdd1_m\" src=\"https:\/\/www.blueleaf.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/3137422976_faf68ecdd1_m.jpg\" width=\"240\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333399;\"><strong>Step 1: Be SMART.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The key to success is having a SMART goal. What is a &#8220;SMART goal&#8221; you ask? One that is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s an example:<br \/>\nstandard goal &#8211; &#8220;Get more clients.&#8221;<br \/>\nSMART goal &#8211; &#8220;Grow my book of business by 10% in the next 6 months through referrals from my network.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8212; Want feedback on your SMART goal? Tweet it to\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/blueleafadvisor\">@blueleafadvisor<\/a>\u00a0!\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333399;\"><strong>Step 2: Read it often.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Now that you&#8217;ve written a SMART goal, strategically note it a few different places where you CAN&#8217;T ignore it. Have it come to you. Put it in your calendar to repeat every Monday morning, write it on a business card to keep with the cash in your wallet, put a sticky note on the bathroom mirror. Whatever spots you&#8217;ll see it (at least once per week) will do the trick.\u00a0The key is that you&#8217;re routinely reading the goal.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #333399;\"><strong>Step 3: Keep yourself accountable.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Put a reminder in your calendar\u00a03 months from today\u00a0to check-in with yourself. Paste your SMART goal in the notes of your reminder to be sure it&#8217;s documented. Also, promise a reward for yourself (game of golf, concert tickets) if you remain focused on the SMART goal.<\/p>\n<p>There. Now continue to do your work with this goal in mind. You&#8217;re set up for success.<br \/>\n<strong>Typically, we&#8217;d wish you luck, but people with SMART goals don&#8217;t even need it.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The calendar has turned to February. We&#8217;ve survived another month of winter, V-Day is coming up, and many people have ditched their New Year&#8217;s resolutions. People quickly give up on resolutions because they don&#8217;t properly define the goal. Resolutions often sound like this: Go to the gym. Quit smoking. Volunteer. Spend more time with family&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[56,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advisorhacks-finsci","category-ideas"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blueleaf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blueleaf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blueleaf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blueleaf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blueleaf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6268"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.blueleaf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6268\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blueleaf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blueleaf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blueleaf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blueleaf.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}