Refocusing Your Mind On Goals

Hey, remember those New Year’s goals you made in January?

Yep, you said it would be different this time, you’ll really work hard, yada yada.

I don’t know why, but so many people feel like the new year is a “fresh start”, which I guess it technically is because it is literally a “New Year”. BUT, I have never felt like that, that all of a sudden the first day of the year is like this whole other world where I am all of a sudden self-disciplined and goal-oriented.

And I don’t know the numbers but I think it’s something like over 80% of people give up after 3 weeks? Something like that.

In January, although I normally never set goals at the beginning of the year, I started with some specific goals in mind.

This year I was really on fire thanks to Rachel Hollis. If you haven’t heard that name you might be living underneath a rock. Anyways, I really did start the year off with some realistic goals in mind.

And not just “get to the goal and be done with it” sort of thinking, I mean actual life style changes goals.

Backtrack a couple of years ago, at the start of 2017 I weighed the heaviest I have ever weighed in my life. I hated it. I felt so bloated, heavy, out of shape, and just plain bad. So when January 1st rolled around I made a commitment to change. And I stuck with it! I was self-disciplined for about 2.5 months. Then I attended a wedding that I was in and all it took was one fast food meal… I didn’t spiral out of control or anything but I lost my momentum.

However, since then I have really learned to eat well all of the time. I never went on a “diet” or did keto, paleo, Whole30, or anything. I just started to eat better food in smaller quantities.

Today, I am now 40+ pounds lighter and am in much better shape! I am stilling working on getting into better shape, but that takes a long time.

Fast forward 2 years to the beginning of 2019. As I said above, I was on fire. I set a lot of life goals, short term and long term. All of them were realistic and reachable. I was doing great…..

AND THEN WE MOVED.

You can read about here .

After we moved, I had all of this time on my hands, so working for those goals should have been a piece of cake. But It is difficult to get back into the motivation mindset and be self disciplined when you’re entire life basically changes and you start back at square one.

Now, here we are 4.5 months after moving, and I am ready for it. I am ready to reset and refocus. For the month of September I am going to refocus on all of the goals I set in January. I will work to be self disciplined. I will work to choose commitment when I don’t feel motivated. I will wake up every day and choose to be better than the day before.

Why am I telling all of the “social media” world about this? So I can hold myself accountable.

If you follow me on Instagram, I vowed to show up and post every day, to let everyone in on what some of the big goals I had for the year were, and to show what my progress is.

What does it take to refocus on goals? Planning, mind set changes, choosing more vegetables over cheesy popcorn, starting my day with devotions, laying out clothes the night before to work out the next day, waking up early every day, etc.

It also takes real, attainable goals to be set in front of me. And ones that will not just stop once I reach that goal. It all takes SELF DISCIPLINE.

Self-discipline, notice how I said those words 5 times? I also bolded them too. Why? Because that’s what it takes to change. When you don’t feel like getting out of bed, you have to train yourself, make a habit of it, and get out of bed using self-discipline. When you don’t want to work out, or eat broccoli instead of donuts, or clean, anything! If you don’t discipline yourself to keep going and make habitual changes for the better, then you will never change and reach your goals.

It doesn’t happen in a day, a week, or a even a month. It takes months or maybe even years to make habitual changes for the better. But, when you put the work in and see that you can make changes, well, that’s a reward in itself.

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If you need encouragement today, let this post be your encouragement! You can do it! Reach for that goal, choose the broccoli, wake up early, or go train for that race.

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I hope you are encouraged by these words. I’d love for you to stick around and see/hear how I am doing at the end of September.

1 Corinthians 9:24 (NIV) “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize”

Thanks for reading,

~Erin, The Short Wife