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Contributed by Lauren Waiss | Northwood University DECA, MI
There are thousands of special days and observances throughout the year. Everything from National Cookie Day to National Weatherman’s Day, and every other niche thing in between. January 13th, 2023, is Make Your Dreams Come True Day. As young emerging leaders, I can almost guarantee that you have been told at some point or another to “follow your dreams”. People like to rattle off this phrase, but don’t typically tell us how to do so. Here are my three tips for setting goals and keeping up with them, to help you make your dreams come true!
1. Make a Plan + Write it Down
There is nothing quite like setting a specific goal for yourself, creating action steps and using milestones to track and celebrate your progress to ultimately succeed in meeting your goal. Writing down your goals forces you to think through and articulate what you want to accomplish and how you can get there; it gives you structure and direction for moving forward. Plus, the act of physically writing down your goals can help make the commitment feel more real and tangible.
2. Celebrate All The Wins
That action plan with the milestones is mighty important for this point. Celebrating each win, whether big or small, is important in keeping you motivated and committed to following through on your goal. Every small step forward is worth celebrating as much as the end result. The added bonus here is that if you wrote down a specific, actionable goal with steps to achieve it at the beginning of the process, you already have milestones to measure, track and ultimately celebrate!
3. Create Accountability
Talking to a friend, parent, coworker or teacher about the goals you have set for yourself is a great starting place for creating accountability. For many people, it is important to feel accountable to someone other than themselves for their goals, so having a partner (or group of partners) through the process can be helpful. When you start to lose that motivation, leaning on your accountability partners for support and accountability can help keep you on track with your goals.
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