How Goal Setting Helped Me Quit and Travel the World

How setting big goals helped me quit my job and travel the world with my family. I want to show you how I did it and help you get the awesome life you want too!

Are you tired of setting goals or making New Year’s Resolutions, but never following through? Did you know that only 8% of people actually accomplish their resolutions? What if you could move past goal setting and crush your goals every time? What would you do if anything was possible?

I was once someone who did not keep my resolutions and goals. Not because I did not have the will power, but because I was not making the right goals. I was setting vague goals and ones that I thought I was supposed to want. You know things like “get healthy”, “lose 10 pounds”, “be positive”.

Why Vague Goal Setting Doesn't Work

The problem was that I never tapped into WHY I was setting these goals or what I really wanted from life. Once I decided the kind of life I wanted, I was able to set better goals and start achieving them. It has been amazing for me and my family.

One of the goals I set was to be able to work for ourselves and travel as a family. As of the time of this post we are 9 months into our original goal of traveling for a year. My husband and I were also able to leave jobs we hated and have been working for ourselves - my husband as a freelance web developer and me on this blog. I feel so fortunate for the life we get to live everyday!

I want you to be able to have the same experience too. Not that you have to travel, but I want you to be excited to wake up everyday and love the life you are living.

That’s why I put together a Goal Achieving Workbook with over 20 pages of helpful advice, tips, hacks, and a step-by-step process for laying out your goals to achieve an Awesome Mama Life. You can download your own copy of the Goal Achieving Workbook for free here.

Free Goal Achieving Workbook

Stop breaking your New Years Resolutions and not following through with your goals. This workbook is jam-packed with over 20 pages of helpful hints, tips, and hacks to help you crush your goals.Get my copy now! FREE

Also as part of releasing this goal setting workbook, I am releasing a video each day talking about the different sections of the workbook. I will also discuss different goal setting topics and tactics. I hope you’ll join me on YouTube or you can watch the video at the end of this post. (please be kind as I am new to video and like most people, scared to put these live) :)

The first section of the Goal Achieving workbooks talks about why you need to be super clear on your goals so let’s dive in…

Why You Need to Be Clear Goal Setting to Work

So, why does it matter if you are clear on your goals? Well, for one, if you don’t know what you want in life, you’re never going to get it. It’s important to know what you want, where you want to go, and what you want to do.

Once you have established clear goals, you will be able to weed out things that are not important, distractions that take you off your path, and can lift the burden of trying to do too much.

Set Goals Based on What You Want Your Life to Be Like

When setting goals, I find it best to look toward your future and think of the kind of person you want to be. How does the future you act in different situations, both good and bad?

Imagine the best version of yourself and that will help you determine what you want your ideal life to look like.

Then, take this vision of your ideal self and start living into that person. If you want to be more positive, establish habits that cultivate positivity, like keeping an appreciation journal. If you want to lose weight, start making healthier choices like the future best version of yourself would.

How Do You Narrow Your Focus When Goal Setting?

It can be very difficult to narrow your focus when you are trying to make big life changes. The tougher part for me is having the patience to do it one step at a time.

In the Goal Achieving Workbook, I breakdown the 10 most important areas in life so you can grade yourself. These are based on the 10 areas outlined by Brendon Burchard in High Performance Habits, but modified for us mamas as our priorities change after we become parents.

Once you know where you stand in each of these areas, it becomes more clear on where you want to focus your energy first. I will actually talk about setting SMART goals again tomorrow or you can check out this blog post too. With your priorities clear it will be easier to set the goals necessary to get the life you truly want.

Ideas for Brainstorming Your Dream Life

If you are still having a hard time coming up with your dream life, these three ideas should help.

Create your bucket list - what adventures do you want to have?
Think about what people will say about you when you’re no longer on this earth - what big accomplishments do you want to be known for?
What do you want your everyday life to look like?

The first two questions help you with the long game. These focusing questions help you determine your direction. The third question focuses on the details. What will you do on a daily basis to keep up your energy and progress toward the long-term goals?

Write Out Your Dream Life to Stick to Your Goals

Take some time to write down your dream life. Once you are finished read it back to yourself and see if it excites you? Does it scare you a little bit and seem a little hard to get?

If, you answered yes, great! You are on the right path and on your way to an awesome life.

If you answered no or were a bit lukewarm, go back and edit. You need your dream life to be something you wake up excited about each day. It needs to push you out of your comfort zone and be more exciting than the fear of not taking action.

Here are 5 more questions to help you focus your energy and determine the right goals.

What are five non-negotiable values in my life?
1. If I were guaranteed success what would I do?
2. What are the experiences I want to have in my life?
3. Are there activities on my schedule that don’t need to be there?
4. What am I doing that I don’t enjoy, and what am I doing that I love?

Congratulations! Knowing where you want to go is half the battle. Of course, like anything in life, if the outcome you seek is worth it, you have some hard work ahead of you. But, hard work does not mean slaving away and toiling in misery until you reach some arbitrary finish line. Just the opposite really.

If your goals and dream life are aligned with your dreams, passions, and purpose, the journey will be just as rewarding as the finish line. And here’s a little secret - there never will be a finish line. That might seem scary, but it’s human nature. We are wired to keep wanting and striving for more.

So, once you reach the awesome life you are dreaming about today, that new you will have other goals to reach. This is just your first domino to fall on your path to amazing.

As promised, here is my first video in my challenge this week to launch the Goal Achieving Workbook.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZ229jbH-z4

And, don't forget to download a free copy of the Goal Achieving Workbook here.