New Years may be over, but that doesn’t mean you need to wait until next year to set some new goals. Do you have a big goal that you’ve been wanting to accomplish?
Here are my 9 steps to Turn your Goals into Games and make achieving your goals more fun and motivating!
1 - Make the Goal Specific
When creating a goal be sure it's a specific goal, instead of a vague dream or wish. This first step is so important because without having a specific goal, how will you know when you’ve reached it? For example, you can have the goal of saving money. That’s great, but how much money? The more specific, the better.
2 - Make the goal measurable
Once you have a specific goal in mind, be sure it is something you can measure. You have to have something you are counting in some way so you can turn it into a game. Whether you are reaching a monetary number, or reaching a number of sales, a number of days, an amount of time, or a combination of these things. In order to turn your goal into a game it must be measurable.
3 - Break the goal into a number of bites
The number of bites or steps or spaces for your game can be just about anything. I tend to like 100 bites for your number goals because it breaks down into percentages each space is 1% of the goal like in our #1 Debt Free Land chart. You could also choose to have a 30-day goal with 30 spaces like our 30 Day Challenge Game, or a 50 step game like our classic Christmas Savings chart, or any other number that makes sense to you.
4 - Create a visual with that number of spaces for steps or bites
This can be as simple as taking a piece of graph paper and dividing it up so it has an equal number of pieces. This could be drawing 30 circles on a page. It could be a bunch of shapes It could be little doodles for each step like a heart or a flower. This is where you can add some fun into your visual!
Don't want to draw or create your own game charts? We've got hundreds of them you can print off right now, from 25 spaces to 400! See them all HERE.
5 - Divide the goal total by the number of spaces on your visual
This helps break down the goal further. Have each space or bite represent a piece of the total. For 100 spaces each one is 1% of the total- easy, for 50 spaces each space is 2% of the total. Sometimes it's as simple as each space equals one day. A space could equal 8 oz of water each or could equal 8 glasses of water. You get to decide how to break up your total spaces based on you goal.
6 - Create Milestones along the way
I like to put milestones at 25% 50% and 75% along the way toward reaching the total goal. This makes it easy to have small goals on the way to your large goal and you can focus in closer. You just have to make it to the 25% mark for now leave the rest for later. Filling up these milestones one at a time can help to make your whole goal seem a little less huge.
Related:
8 Keys to Reaching your Biggest Goals
4 Ways to Track your Fitness Goals
How to Outsmart Overwhelm and Reach Your Money Goals
7 - Fill in the game as you make progress
Filling in your charts as you make progress could look like:
- Saving up for a $1,000 vacation - broken down into 100 pieces of $10 each. So for each $10 you dedicate to the vacation fund, you fill one piece of the chart.
- Paying off debt - Total of your debt divided by spaces in your visual. Each time your debt balance goes down, color in the appropriate number of spaces.
- Time habits - Let’s say you want to declutter for 1000 minutes. Each space of a 100 space game is 10 minutes. So, if you declutter for 30 minutes you get to color in 3 spaces.
Let each small step forward propel you forward!
8 - Celebrate as you reach each milestone
The Milestones along the way give you something smaller to reach toward and something to celebrate each time you reach it. The more celebrations you build into your game, the more often you pat yourself on the back for the work you've done, the more often you acknowledge the progress you've made even though you haven't reached the entire goal yet, and the more motivated you will stay to actually finish it completely.
9 - Reward yourself when you reach the final goal
Some goals in themselves are the reward, like reaching a savings goal for a vacation you've always wanted to take. When you reach the goal you get to take the vacation because you saved the money. But other goals don't have a built-in reward, so figure out a reward that will keep you going to reach the goal. So if you have a reading goal of 100 books, yes there is reward in reading the 100 books, but if you know once you reach that goal you're going to buy yourself a new iPad, reaching the goal is even more enticing.
It can be scary to start new goals, especially if they seem out of reach. I hope that you try out these 9 steps to gaming your goals and enjoy the process, taking time to celebrate the small wins.
- Make the Goal specific
- Make the Goal Measurable
- Break Goal into a number of bites
- Create a Visual with that number of bites
- Divide goal total by that number of bites
- Create milestones along the way
- Fill in the Game as you make progress
- Celebrate as you reach each milestone
- Reward yourself when you reach the goal
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Try this process out for one of your goals and let me know how it went in the comment section below!
Related:
8 Keys to Reaching your Biggest Goals
4 Ways to Track your Fitness Goals
How to Outsmart Overwhelm and Reach Your Money Goals
