Making Goals STILL
Believe it or not, goals are essential when talking about Self Care and Evolving. Making goals frees you from simply talking about the things you want to do and puts you on a path to accomplish them. I’m sure many of you have made New Year's Resolutions and just by sitting and thinking about what you want to achieve in 2020, you have set yourself apart by being intentional on having a great year. I applaud everyone who has been consistent thus far; however, I am sure there are some of us who have not been able to keep up with all of our goals. If you are one of those people do not feel bad. Being consistent is hard! That is why I chose to share my method of not only setting but accomplishing goals with you all.
My advice when making goals is to focus on being STILL. STILL stands for specific, timely, introspective, logical , and lenient. Similar to Smart goals, the “STILL” method allows for your goals to be tangible and easy to manage; moreover, it allows you to be accountable while practicing emotional wellness.
The first and probably most important aspect of this method is to make your goals SPECIFIC. I have found that I have a lot of big things I want to accomplish, yet, most of them require that I accomplish smaller things first. To make this easy on me, I not only write out my goals but I plan out the steps necessary to accomplish them. Next, I break my plan up into TIME intervals. Typically, I have about three or four goals to accomplish per month. This way I can easily check my progress and I avoid trying to accomplish every goal I have for the year at once. This gives me the time to realistically plan around my everyday schedule without overwhelming myself.
Another way I avoid being overwhelmed is staying INTROSPECTIVE. No one knows me better than I know myself, so I make it a priority to check in and see how I am feeling about my goals and my progress so far. By being aware of how I am feeling, I can gauge my progress and use LOGIC to make sound decisions early on instead of naively trying to push through. Naturally, I want to accomplish everything that I initially set out to, but I need a plan if those things become unrealistic. There are times when I know I may need to push something back or miss out on some things so that I can still make my deadline. Other times I have to rearrange my plans, and sometimes even start all the way over.
Either way I am sure to be LENIENT with myself. Whether my goals are large or small, I treat them as important. I know that I put forth my best effort with everything I am doing, so it is counterproductive for me to be hard on myself. I’ve found that negativity just pushes me further from my goals, when I can use that energy to make a new plan and keep going instead.
This method has been extremely useful for me while trying to realistically accomplish so much and staying mentally well. For example, one of my huge goals while studying for the MCAT was to get back in the gym. I wanted the positive benefits of being a healthy individual (read: more ENERGY, while staying fit lol) but I have about 11 hours of studying per day so I focused my goals on being STILL. My goal was not only to get in the gym, but to go twice a week within my 2 hour study breaks on Monday and Wednesday. I then added a time deadline. I wanted to go twice a week for a full month so that once I accomplish that month’s goal I could adjust and make a new one depending on what realistically worked with my life schedule. Throughout this process I remembered to be both introspective and logical because honestly, some days my goal became a “chore” and it was not beneficial for me to prioritize on that specific day. This drove me crazy because when I have a plan I typically like to stick to it. This rearranging of my schedule had the potential to ruin my entire week but instead I remembered to be lenient and reminded myself that not only am I trying to be fit but I’m trying to conquer a 7.5 hour test and that changing my plan from going to the gym on a Monday to a Tuesday would only allow me to show up as my best self the following day.
To end, I want to remind you that this journey is yours so make it your own. If you love some of the STILL method but maybe need to adjust some things to better suit yourself go ahead! Making goals and accomplishing them is truly an art so I encourage you to keep trying until you find what you need to succeed. Don’t be discouraged when you fall off of your plan, instead use that as motivation to pick back up and keep going. No matter what you do, don’t give up on your goals or yourself. I am confident that you got this!