2020 Goals: Finish

Last year I read the book Finish by Jon Acuff, and man, it spoke to me.

In it he talks a lot about how people set goals, and some of the reasons they get derailed and never finish their goals. Of course there are a lot of reasons things don’t go as planned, but one of the biggest (and the one I related to the most) goes something like this: I have a goal of listing a minimum of 12 new items per day. I am trucking along, getting my listings up and feeling really good about it, but then life happens and one day I just can’t get it done. I let it derail me, and instead of dusting myself off and starting again tomorrow I feel discouraged that my streak is over and less motivated to try again. And before I know it a month has slipped by without me being consistent and I feel frustrated and defeated.

One of the strategies Acuff suggests in combating this is: Cut your goal in half.

I love it. It’s brilliant.

Making the base goal so much more attainable elevates my motivation to try and achieve and keep achieving. It’s the marathon-not-a-sprint or tortoise-and-the-hare mindset. Keep plugging away, possibly at a slower pace, but being able to attain the goals builds momentum and I’m more likely to end up where I want to be, even if it takes a bit longer than I want it to.

In my life there are three areas that I always feel I am striving to do better.

#1 – make more money
#2 – manage my health
#3 – home organization

{Of course there are other priorities as well, such as my family, but I feel like I already do a good job in that area. I don’t feel I need to make a more concerted effort to stay on track.}

These are my “cut the goal in half” bare minimum daily to-dos that I keep track of in a memo on my phone.
Work related:
eBay – create at least 6 new listings.
Poshmark – crosslist 4 items
Mercari – crosslist 4 items
Health related:
Track my food/exercise on the Lose It app.
Exercise for at least 20 minutes/day.
Home organization:
Focused 30 minutes of organization/purging/cleaning.
Bonus:
Add at least one post on my kid blog. (Mostly just for the grandparents and for me to eventually print out in lieu of a photo album. I am super behind.)

Do I have other goals I want to get done every day? Of course. Do I want to get more than just six items listed on eBay every day? Absolutely. But for some reason instead of having a huge goal in front of me (where I will eventually flounder) having these small bite-size goals to work on each day keeps me really motivated.

I know these goals don’t look like much. Some days they are all knocked out in the morning. Some days I finish up just before midnight. I also give myself the weekends off from trying to meet all of the goals, which helps me push through the weekdays – knowing a weekend is coming. My hope is that it will be a recipe for consistency and sustainability.

Do you have any specific goals this year? How are you going about attaining them? I would love to hear about it!