Every year, most people have either made goals or have considered making goals. But, the problem with creating goals is that most people aren’t good at it. Their goals lack clarity or direction or they’re too broad. I am going to briefly go over how you create BETTER goals.

Most of you have probably heard of SMART goals. They’re usually used in business but they can really apply to anything.

Smart stands for… Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound

Specific – your goal has to be specific. You can’t just say that you want to jump higher. How much higher do you want to jump? 2 inches? 6 inches? 12 inches? Being specific, gives you something to reach for.

Measurable – If your goal isn’t measurable, how can you know if you achieve it. Using the example of wanting to jump higher, we know when we achieve that goal. If our goal is to jump 6 inches higher, then we can measure how high we jump now and then measure it later to see if we’ve achieved our goal.

Attainable – Your goal has to be realistic. It has to be something that you can actually accomplish. Wanting to increase your vertical by 6 inches is probably attainable, but wanting to increase your vertical by 24 inches can be very difficult for most people… at least in a small time frame.

Relevant – WHY do you want to accomplish this goal? How is it relevant to what you are trying to accomplish. Are you trying to increase your vertical by 12 inches so that you can be a bigger blocker? Or are you trying to flex on people by hitting monster attacks in front of the 10ft line?

Time-Bound – You need to have an end game. How soon do you want to accomplish this goal? Remember, it needs to be attainable. Increasing your vertical by 12 inches in one month is probably not attainable, but you could probably do it over 6 months. Having a time frame will help you create Check Points which I talk about in just a minute.

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Now that you understand how to set your goals, take a moment to write down your goals and then continue reading about how you can crush your goals.

How to Crush Your Goals

You’ve set goals… now what? Unfortunately, just setting goals doesn’t make them happen. You have to take daily, intentional action to reach those goals.

But what does that look like? How can you crush your goals and finally achieve the thing you’ve been dreaming about for a long time?

As I talked about earlier, you have to create measurable and attainable goals that you can complete in a realistic time frame. We refer to this as SMART goals.

Sometimes, when we look at our goals, it can be a little daunting to think about all the things we have to do to make these goals happen. You know your starting point and you know your end point. But how do we get the stuff that’s in between? I’m going to give you 3 simple steps that will help you crush your goals.

The main way that I like to approach goal setting is to create Check Points

1) Check Points

Like I said before, looking at BIG goals can get overwhelming, but if you break it down into smaller pieces, it is much more manageable and also allows you to celebrate along the way. If your goal is to increase your vertical by 6 inches over 3 months, that’s just 2 inches each month. That could be as easy as doing an extra Hundred jump ropes each day or an extra 25 box jumps each day.

While increasing your vertical by 6 inches may seem like a lot, increasing your vertical by just 2 inches each month is a piece of cake… if you are intentional.

2) Be Intentional

You have your goal. You have your checkpoints. Now follow it. You can’t just wing it from day to day hoping that you wake up one day and you’re touching 10 feet. It requires daily, intentional action. Find some Jump Training videos on Youtube. Find a Jump Training coach. Then do whatever it takes to complete that program on a regular basis whether it’s every day or three times a week.

3) Find A Partner

The main reason people fail at reaching their goals is because no one is holding them accountable. People are notorious for not holding themselves accountable which is why so many people give up on their New Years Resolutions by the end of January. Not even 30 days in and people lose their motivation.

Let’s be real. It can be hard to keep your motivation all by yourself… which is why you still probably haven’t finished cleaning your room that you said you were going to start a month ago.

A lot of people are more motivated when the pressure is on, which is why so many people are procrastinators because if they wait until the last minute, they have no choice but to complete the project or fail. And most people don’t want to fail.

But when you have a partner, you feel the pressure of letting them down so you are willing to work harder simply so you don’t look like a failure to the other person. While it is better to be intrinsically motivated, being motivated by external factors can still help you reach your goals. Find someone who is willing to hold you accountable and help you stick with your goals. Reaching goals is a lot easier when you have someone standing right next to you cheering you own.

Those are the 3 steps that I use to help me with goal setting. I hope you found them useful.

Now don’t just sit there and watch Youtube videos. Write down your goals, create a plan, and find someone who will hold you accountable.