Tips for setting your goals (and sticking to them!)

By Tamara Medina Sapovalova 

Each year offers the promise of great things to come. Each day offers a world of opportunities - the challenge is knowing what we want to achieve.

If you are clear about your goals and purpose in life, you need to focus on opportunities to make this happen. These opportunities need to be identified, so you can take them and make them your own.

So, what happens once you sit down and set your big goals? Usually, we all begin full of good intentions but within a couple of days and weeks these are diluted and we slowly return to the old routine.

It doesn’t have to be a new year, or a new quarter, for you to make a change. Whenever you’re truly ready, you can begin working towards your goals. So, why not take some extra time to sit and think to yourself; what is it you really want to achieve, where should you focus your time and energy and what are your priorities?

To help you get off to a promising start, I’ve put a couple of tips together…

Make an account of your accomplishments and experiences both professionally and personally

Generally, we tend to focus a lot on what we have not done - what we need to do and emphasise negative experiences. The important thing is learning that these are things you can work on and learn from . The main thing to focus on is what is working , what we are doing right and what we must change. Ask yourself the following questions:

• What are my greatest accomplishments? What am I proud of?
• What are my skills and how will they help you succeed?
• What have been my biggest challenges? What did I learn from these? What would I do differently given the same set of circumstances?
• If Icould encapsulate my experiences in one sentence, what would I write?

As mentioned, you don’t have to wait until the start of the year to do this exercise. You can do it monthly, weekly or whatever you think is most effective for you.

Take responsibility

When reflecting and planning, it’s a good time to recognise our limitations and take responsibility for how we can overcome them or work on them.

• What are the areas that need improvement?
• Have I hurt someone and how I can correct the situation?
• Who are the people worthy of my time and attention?

Planning

Once you are clear on what you have achieved, strengths you have and the areas in which you have to work on, it’s time to plan and set your priorities. This is the time to make commitments. Be the person you really want to be and let this be the beginning of a new you.

Take Action

This step is the most important because we can get to the third step but without implementation and taking action, nothing will truly happen. You will get further down the line and see no tangible change. For more information Three Secrets of the change process

Every day ask yourself the following questions at the end of your day.

• What did I learn today?
• What did I do today to get closer to my goals?
• What can I do better starting tomorrow?
• One thing I am grateful for today?

Find out more about Tamara

Tamara Medina Sapovalova has 10+ years international experience in providing Scaleup founders with a result driven leadership skill set to build high performance teams, creating a sustainable and healthy business culture.  Working alongside fast growing start up companies based in the UK and Latin America

She is the founder of Sapovalova Coaching, cofounder of Latam Tech UK, member of Tech London Advocates and Co-leader for TLA LatAm, former Huffington Post Spanish blogger and author of ‘10 days, 10 actions, 10 times more productive’ published in English and Spanish. She has written for various magazines and international publications. She has also been a judge in several technology competitions and she is the official Coach for Latam Edge and Brazil Tech Awards.