We’ve all been there before.

We have goals, resolutions, big plans, and a desire to accomplish and achieve exciting things.

But somewhere along the way, something happens: we get stuck. Our plans end up all but forgotten, our dreams lost in the chaos and busyness of everyday life.

The problem, often, is that while we’re great at setting high and lofty goals, but when it comes to breaking those goals down on a practical level and implementing them on a daily basis, it can be a lot more challenging!

In our series this month, we’ve been talking about living a well-designed life and seeing what this means practically. Last time we uncovered the importance of balance and goal-setting across all sectors of our life.

Today, we’re going to take a look at breaking it down monthly, weekly, and daily.

Are you ready?

If you’d like to reach your goals this year, it’s important to go about breaking them up into actionable steps and putting them within your reach.

With this in mind, here’s a look at a few things that you can do to turn your goals into actions, routines, and habits.

Make Sure Your Goals Are Clear

First things first, it’s important to ensure that your goals are clear. Instead of having a goal to “lose weight,” for example, or “get healthy,” it’s important to be specific. How much weight would you like to lose? When would you like to lose it by? What does “being healthy” mean to you? How would you break it up, practically speaking? Once you have clear objectives in mind you’ll be able to break them up into doable steps—and start working towards accomplishing them.

Start Planning

Next comes the planning. Planning for success is important, but actually making it happen is where the real work begins.

Here are some simple ways you can help plan break your goals down into smaller steps that will make them more possible to achieve.

• Create Monthly Actions
First, it’s important to take those big, overarching goals of yours, and break them up a bit. Try dividing them up into monthly chunks, things that you’d like to accomplish on a month-to-month basis.

Say your big goal is to run a marathon in six months, your monthly sub-goals might include using the first month to build a base level of fitness and to work on establishing good running technique. This stage should also include adjusting your diet, getting plenty of rest, and hydrating enough as well. The next month might include building endurance and increasing speed. No matter what your big-picture goal is, it’s important to break it up into Monthly Actions, so that you have time-based objectives to work towards, gradually bringing you closer and closer to your goals.

• Set Weekly Routines
From there, you can start setting your week up for success. It’s important that you set aside 20-30 minutes a week to create a plan of attack for your upcoming week. Schedule out your week and days with the tasks you need to accomplish as well as the goals that you’ve set for yourself each week. Breaking these tasks up into daily tasks will not only make your larger goals easier to reach, it will help you stay on task and incorporate these things into your daily life as well. Be sure to get a copy of our FREE Ideal Week printable to help you visualize what you want out of each week. Schedule in what matters most, and then fill in the rest.

• Daily Habits
You’ve heard it before, and it’s true: “You have to plan your own success.” Without a plan, it’s difficult to finish anything, and harder still to reach your goals. Either you can be in control of your day—or the events of the day will control you!

Be sure to plan your day in an effective manner, looking over your tasks and eliminating time-wasters and unneeded tasks. You should also be sure not to overload your day too much. Always plan for unexpected tasks that will arise. At this stage you’ll also want to ensure that you work to implement healthy daily habits—things that you can incorporate into your routine that will better you or others in some way—as well as ones that will help you to reach your big-picture goals.

Planning takes time and effort, but it’s tremendously important and vital for achieving your goals! No matter what your goals are or how daunting them might seem, breaking them up into doable steps will help to bring success within your reach.

We’re rooting for you, and know you can do it!

Stay tuned: Next time we’ll explore tips for finding balance and making progress each and every day. Be sure to check back in for more of our top tips on bringing your goals within your reach.

What goals have you set for this year? How will you break them down?

Day Designer is a proven system to get organized and live with intention—your tool for mapping out your big-picture goals and carving out time in your schedule for the things that matter most. Be sure to pop over to look at our 2019 Flagship Collection today!

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