When was the last time you checked in on your goals? Have you accomplished what you’d set out to do this year or are you not as close to achieving your goals as you’d hoped? If it’s the latter you’re not alone! We all start the year off with good intentions but life gets in the way and momentum can wane. The distraction of summer and the list of things needing our attention can make it hard to achieve our goals. With only a few weeks to go until the end of the year, it can be very tempting to give up and just coast. To think “I might as well wait until next year”. But don’t do it! Whilst it might seem pointless to start working on your goals now, here are six reasons why September is the perfect time to give your goals the attention they deserve:
1. There’s more time than you think
Three and a half months might not seem that long, especially with Christmas on the horizon, but it’s a little over sixteen weeks. That’s more than one hundred days and fifteen whole weekends. That’s a lot of time! You might not feel like there’s any point in investing time in your goals when you’re this close to the end of the year, but what if you did? What if you assessed where you were and started now instead of waiting until January? Just imagine what you could achieve between now and Christmas! Even if you only accomplished one thing a week, that’s sixteen items ticked off your To Do list and sixteen steps closer to achieving your goals.
2. September is a new year too
It’s so easy to see why the first of January is such a good time to set resolutions, why we choose then to start working on our goals. Having a whole new year ahead of us is exciting. It’s a fresh start where we get to leave all the things we didn’t like about last year in the past. It can feel like the world is our oyster, that there’s nothing but opportunities ahead of us. But guess what? September is a new year too! The start of the new school year has the same energy and fresh start feeling that January has, so it’s a perfect time to start working on your goals again. Treat the start of term as if it’s a new year for you as well as your kids. Just like January, you’ll feel energised, motivated and determined to start achieving your goals.
3. You have the opportunity to review the year so far
Come December, when it’s time to start thinking about your new year’s resolutions, your mind is exhausted. You’re overwhelmed from Christmas. Your mind isn’t in the right place and it can be hard to think about what you want from your goals. But in September your mindset is different. You’re in a routine. Christmas is only a couple of months away and your mind is in planning mode. When you’re in this frame of mind, when you’re thinking ahead like this, it’s much easier to review your progress. It’s much easier to assess what’s working and what isn’t and the changes you want to make. You have a few months to start thinking about what goals you want to achieve next year and you get to steer the remainder of the year in any direction you choose.
4. You’re free to set your goals for the right reasons
Why do we set new year’s resolutions? Because we want to make a change for the better. We also set them because on January 1st, that’s what everyone else does! With new year comes the pressure to set new goals, to make new year’s resolutions. But if they don’t really resonate with what we want to achieve, if we’re only setting them because everyone else is, we’re setting ourselves up for a fail. Set your goals in September and you won’t be clouded by the pressure of keeping up with everyone else. You’ll be a lot freer to really think about what you want to achieve and why. You’re more likely to set goals that resonate and you’ll be more likely to succeed because your determination is genuine.
5. You don’t have the added pressure that new year’s resolutions bring
There’s such an expectation at the beginning of the year to set resolutions. But then everyone starts comparing and it’s very easy to feel like you’re in competition with your friends. You become more focused on keeping up rather than achieving your goals for the right reasons. When it comes to setting and working on goals, the only person you should be in competition with is yourself. Competing with others is unnecessary added pressure. When you’re unable to accomplish your goals in the timeframe set, or you find yourself starting to slip, you start to feel guilty. It’s easy to start beating yourself up and it’s easy to feel like a failure. But work on your goals in September and things change. You’re setting them for your own benefit, no one else’s. There’s no competition, no comparisonitis and you can work at a pace that suits you.
6. Imagine where you’ll be come January
Imagine the progress you can make if you start working on achieving your goals now rather than waiting for January. Not only will you enter into the new year feeling like you’ve achieved, you won’t be needing to play catch up. Rather than feeling guilty that you didn’t make the most of the previous year, you’ll be feeling fresh and full of motivation. On a high from your accomplishments, you’ll be able to direct that energy towards achieving the new goals you set yourself. You’ll be able to achieve so much more than expected because you made the most of the last few months of the year. What’s even more exciting is you’ll get to set some brand new goals for the new year!
So where do you start?
Set aside some quiet time where you’re free to review your progress. Grab a piece of paper and a pen. Think about where you are now and where you want to be come January. Ask yourself:
- What goals did you set yourself?
- What progress have you made?
- Out of all your goals, which are the most important?
- Which do you want to achieve by the end of the year?
- What can wait until next year?
- Which no longer fit with your bigger plan?
Don’t be disheartened if you’re not as far along as you’d have liked. That’s not the purpose of this exercise. The point is to recognise what you haven’t yet achieved and to figure out a plan that’ll get you there before the end of the year. Review your goals, figure out your priorities and create a plan. Set yourself some weekly and monthly targets and regularly check-in on your progress. Don’t be afraid to let go of any goals that no longer serve you. Just because you set them at the beginning of the year doesn’t mean that you have to follow through on them if they no longer fit with your bigger plan.
6 Reasons to start achieving your goals right now…
Don’t wait until January to pick back up the goals you’ve let slip! Think how much you can achieve between now and December if you make the time to check-in on your goals and develop a plan. You’ll be able to start the new year feeling like you’ve already achieved AND you’ll be able to set yourself some brand new goals instead of feeling guilty and playing catch up! Make the next few months count. Be proud of what you’ve achieved and head into the new year ready to take the next steps. Remember that by working on your goals in September:
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