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I call myself “the snail pacer” because of the way I approach goals. I am not one to jump in and go at it full throttle ignoring all I can in life until the job is done. As a person who loves balance and daily routine that level of intensity stresses me out. Instead I work my goals around my daily life responsibilities as a wife, homeschooling mom and homemaker and accept my snail pace progress as a small price to pay for balance.
Here are my 10 Tips to Snail Pace Your Goals
1. Sit down and realistically look at your day to day life
Where is your time going? Where are the windows in your day to complete your goal? How can you create more time to work on your goals? Can you assign the kids some simple tasks? Can you do some chores more efficiently and thus save time? Can you give up things?
2. Be realistic about what you can get done in the time you have
Time yourself to see how long it really takes to complete whatever small tasks you need to do over and over to complete your goal. Knowing how long tasks really take will let you set achievable mini goals and a firm goal end date.
3. Commit to spending a certain amount of time on your goal each day or each week.
I like thinking of goal time this way, ” I will spend either 15 minutes a day on this goal or 1 hour and a half total over the course of the week”. Being flexible allows me grab a big time window if it arrives and get it all done at once, or use the small windows that pop up in my daily life effectively.
4. Set a timer and focus.
If you committed to 15 minutes of work on your goal set a timer and go at it with laser focus. You should be exhausted when the timer goes off.
5. Take time to celebrate each and every success no matter how small.
This will help spur you on to completing more steps towards your over all goal.
6. When you reach a wall, slow down but don’t stop.
It is important to push through obstacles to complete your goals, otherwise you never will reach the finish line. If you are feeling stuck, take time off to research and learn a new approach and then get back at it.
7. Tell others your goal
Nothing works better than peer pressure. Every time I sign up for a marathon I post it to Facebook so that people know I am working towards it and will ask me how training is going. Knowing they are going to ask me motivates me to train.
8. Use people who have succeeded at your goal as inspiration
I read marathon story after marathon story when training for my first 26.2 mile race.
9. Sprint only when the end is clearly in site
If you push too early in your goals you are going to wear out and not finish. Unless you can clearly see the finish in sight don’t push yourself stick to small little steps.
10. Always no matter what keep learning
Even if I don’t complete my goal I don’t call it a failure, I simply call it learning.
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I have some different projects that are growing, and I am really trying to take the snail approach! I told my husband that I want to be like the tortoise, and not the hare. I really liked these ten suggestions!
Yes, I tried to be a Hare a few times but just found it left me so drained a wore out I got less done overall. I am glad you liked the tips I hope they help.
I have just recently started using a time and it has really helped me stay focused and work faster!
I love using a timer! Even if the task is painful, the end is near. I’m doing decluttering for 15 minutes a day, and the timer has been such a blessing!
I used my cell phone timer at my old job. It really helped when I was having a rough day!!