3 Tips For Achieving Goals

We’ve all heard this tip, but I’m here to remind you that all those small achievements add up to something big. And that something big is your confidence. Once you build up your confidence and know you’re the badass you always knew you were, your goals and resolutions will get bigger and grander. You’ll be able to see the new “you” and visualize the “you” you’ve always wanted to be.

A few years back, I kept hearing about the benefits of meditating, journaling, gratitude journaling, vision boarding, taking a cold shower… the list goes on and on. A tale as old as time: I tried to implement all of those things, all at once. Surprise surprise, none of them stuck. I revisited this list, and started with what I thought would be the easiest task for me to complete every morning, and that was journaling. After a few months, I added making a list of gratitudes. After another few months, I started meditating. And soon I had a morning routine that helped me mentally and physically, and has benefited me enormously. It’s helped me realize and create my dream life.

So start small like saving $1 everyday, making sure all the dishes are clean before going to bed (I’m still working on this one), standing and stretching at least once an hour while working (another one I’m still working on) or flossing your teeth every night. And when those small tasks seem daunting, make them smaller. Save $0.50 a day, make sure all your dishes are in the sink soaking, stand and stretch at least once every 90 minutes and floss your teeth every other night. Just start with one small thing, build upon it and don’t give up.

January 1^st seems like a great time to make changes. Or even the start of a week. Or maybe your birthday. But I am here to tell you that every single day is the same, and you should start right now. Start whenever the mood strikes. Start whenever you have the thought that “you should”. I was a smoker for over 11 years. I smoked between two and three packs a day, and I smoked Marlboro Red’s… and lights, and light 100’s, and Camel Lights. I pretty much smoked whatever I could get my hands on. I quit on a Tuesday in March at lunchtime. I was standing outside of my office building on Park Ave., waiting for my lunch to be delivered. And I flung my cigarette butt into the street and said to myself, “That’s it. That’s my last one.” And it was. I threw out the rest of my pack and haven’t touched a cigarette since. Of course I had passing thoughts of quitting before then. And what I remember most was not wanting to smell like stale cigarette smoke anymore. I was standing outside of that office building, getting constant whiffs of the smoke floating by from other smokers and from my own cigarette and I got frustrated. It was something I would never be able to get away from unless I quit. Ironically, I was living with two smokers at the time and I would still smell like smoke, but not as badly. My point is that you should just do it. Do it when the mood strikes, and make that change. Don’t wait until Monday. Don’t wait until you finish that pack. Just do it now.

About a year after quitting smoking, I decided to start working out again. I had been active in high school, and occasionally during college and afterwards. But I didn’t have a regular routine and I wasn’t a member of any gym. I knew myself well enough to know that I needed to actually FEEL the difference of not smoking to stay away from it. I was young when I quit, so it wasn’t like I was fighting a disease yet or was told by the doctor that I had three months to live if I didn’t quit. But I knew if I started to do something that a smoker wouldn’t be able to do easily, I would be able to feel the difference and eventually feel improvement. That’s when I started running. Running gave me the reason to stay away from cigarettes. And that’s what I needed to keep going. It became more than just “not smoking because it’s bad for me” – this esoteric, abstract, pie-in-the-sky reason, and instead became the reason I could run which was a concrete, very real reason. A short seven years after quitting smoking, I ran the NYC Marathon.