{"id":28295,"date":"2018-09-03T14:18:11","date_gmt":"2018-09-03T19:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nosidebar.com\/?p=28295"},"modified":"2018-09-04T17:28:16","modified_gmt":"2018-09-04T22:28:16","slug":"goal-setting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nosidebar.com\/goal-setting\/","title":{"rendered":"A Minimalist\u2019s Guide to Goal-Setting"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n
Have you ever tried to form a new habit or set a goal for yourself only to lose motivation and give up midway through? Or you might even try to implement several new habits at once and after a successful first few weeks, gradually begin to wane in your progress.<\/p>\n
New habits are hard to form<\/a>. Even the best intentions can be swept away by busy schedules, exhaustion, and overwhelm. Diet and exercise fads come and go, novel mindfulness trends intrigue us, and fresh challenges excite us; but despite our most valiant efforts, we slowly slip back into our old ways.<\/p>\n A few months ago, I decided it was time for me to get reacquainted with the healthful habits I\u2019d been neglecting for too long. Each day I was determined to drink 3 bottles of water, exercise, meditate, read for 30 minutes, write down what I was grateful for, and do an act of self-care. Sound ambitious? I\u2019d been doing each of these practices for years, I reasoned, albeit rather inconsistently. What could be so hard about starting them up again all at once?<\/p>\n I rolled up my sleeves and made a monthly tracking chart for myself, colorful and creative, true to my nature. For 30 days, I hit nearly all my marks. I loved seeing the brightly colored boxes that reflected my progress and was feeling empowered by my old-now-new-again daily rituals.<\/p>\n By the second month, relishing in the high of my recent success, I began falling off course. I couldn\u2019t keep up during weekends of travel and the novelty of my tracking chart was beginning to wear off.<\/p>\n By month three, I\u2019d all but abandoned my daily routines and began casually fitting them in when I could. Had I tried to make too many changes at once, I wondered. Each month I vowed to start anew but my motivation had long since faded.<\/p>\n As a minimalist, I never thought that maybe I should take the same approach toward goal-setting as I did toward so many other things: quality over quantity, deliberation over impulse, abundant joy over excess need.<\/p>\n Recently I discovered a new way of setting goals for myself: instead of trying to implement several goals at once, I would simply pick one goal (not two or three or five) and focus on it for 30 days. When I first learned about this method, it struck me how well it aligned with the minimalist values I\u2019ve long embraced.<\/p>\n It was simple:<\/strong><\/p>\n No fuss or frills, just one goal at a time.<\/p>\n It was meaningful: <\/strong><\/p>\n It didn\u2019t depend on rapidly changing trends or contemporary crazes, only on what was most important to me.<\/p>\n It was pressure-free: <\/strong><\/p>\n There was no urgency to strive for more than I was capable of, only what was within my reach each day.<\/p>\n