Do you have a goal that fell by the wayside years ago? Perhaps you always wanted to write a novel. Or maybe years ago, you wanted to learn to paint landscapes. You may have a decades old goal of becoming fluent in German. And then life got in the way, and that goal was never accomplished. And now you are wondering, “How do I revive my old goal?”
The good news is that it’s never too late to revive what may seem like a dead goal. That is because if you still have a breath in your body, you can (and should be) trying to achieve new things. Your life should be a continuous process tackling new goals and having new achievements.
Realize that there is no goal that can’t be revived! The challenge is how to give life to a goal that you put on the back burner for weeks, months or maybe even years. Below are some ways to do just that. Apply these approaches to your dormant goal and see your “once hoped for” dream come to pass!
Step One in Reviving an Old Goal: Don’t Beat Yourself Up Over Getting Off Track
Not one of us can say, “I’ve accomplished all that I ever set out to do.” We all have goals that have fallen by the wayside. After all, life gets in the way. Our time can be taken up with work, marriage or perhaps children. And then the dreams and goals that we originally set out to achieve get put on the back burner.
The problem is that we may fear reviving our old goals because we don’t want to fail at achieving those goals a second (or third or fourth) time. However, don’t look at your prior attempts as failures. Rather, consider them to be learning experiences. Based on those experiences, you now know the level of commitment required to complete your goal.
For instance, let’s say that a year ago, you had a goal of becoming more physically fit. Your plan was to go to the gym six days a week. So, you got a gym membership, and the for the first month, things went really well! But then work projects came up. You had to work some late hours, and your regular gym visits stopped.
Don’t beat yourself up for having gotten off track from your fitness goal! The blessing of that experience is that you now know that in order to accomplish your goal, you have to make your health a priority. That may mean putting your gym time on your calendar as a “set in stone” appointment. Or, it may mean setting your alarm clock earlier in the morning to go for a walk in your neighborhood, or to spend 30 minutes on your exercise bike.
So, when you decide to revive an old goal, Step One is to forgive yourself for having let that goal go dormant in the first place. Instead, consider your prior attempts to be learning experiences on the path to figuring out the right way to accomplish that goal.
Commit to Small, Daily Acts of Progress
One of the reasons why we fail to achieve our goals is that we get too easily discouraged. When we don’t accomplish our goals as quickly as we’d like, we just give up. But realize that Big Goals may take months, or even years, to accomplish. So, if you want to do something significant in life, you have to be willing to stay the course.
One way to remain motivated when working toward a Big Goal is to commit to doing small, daily acts in furtherance of your goal. Realize that those small, daily efforts will pay off in the long run. For example, let’s say that you want to learn to play the piano. If you spend 5 years practicing the piano for 20-30 minutes a day (without fail), by the end of those 5 years, you will be a pretty good piano player! Of course, you won’t be a professional. But you’ll be able to play many pieces of music on the piano with relative ease.
As another example, let’s say that your goal is to become proficient in French. You took French in high school and college, but then you let your foreign language skills lapse. You now want to revive and improve your lapsed French skills. Taking 15-20 minutes a day to practice your French by using Duolingo or listening to a French podcast will pay off! Simply committing to a short period of daily practice for 2-3 years will make a massive difference in your language skills.
The good news is that it is “doable” to make short, daily efforts toward your goal. We all can dedicate 15 to 30 minutes a day to revive a currently dormant goal. Think of that time as an investment in you.
Make Adjustments to Your Goal, If Necessary
For some of us, our goals went by the wayside because they just didn’t make sense at the time. For instance, you may have had a goal to travel the world. But then you got married. And children came along. And in order to pay the bills and provide your children with stability, you gave up your dream of traveling the world in exchange for a nice house and a steady job.
That is a revivable dream! As any empty nester knows, once your kids are out of college (and those shockingly high college bills are paid for), the world is your oyster! Sure, you may not be able to travel the world like a twenty-something anymore, backpacking, staying in hostels and traveling by train.
But you still can see the world – just in a completely different fashion. For instance, you might find an employer who will let you work remotely. That remote work will give you the flexibility to move to a foreign country where you can experience living in another part of the world. Or, you might retire to a foreign country, where you can experience the expat lifestyle.
The key when reviving a goal is flexibility. You need to be willing to adjust your goal to whatever stage of life you are in right now. And believe it or not, your adjusted goal may be even better than the original one!
Reward the Small Wins on Your Journey
If you let a goal fall by the wayside in the past, it may be because you didn’t have the stamina to see that goal to its fruition. After all, persistence is the key to achieving any Big Goal. That is why rewarding the small wins along your journey is so important as you work toward your goal.
If you are reviving an old goal, you‘ll want to figure out ways to reward yourself as you strive toward your goal. That way, you can stay motivated this time around. For instance, if you are trying to finish that book you started years ago, you might get yourself some sort of treat – maybe a fancy Starbucks drink or a slice of cake – every time you finish a chapter. Those rare sugary treats aren’t going increase your waistline, and they will be a terrific way to keep you motivated on the way to accomplishing your Big Goal.
Realize that if you are too draconian about the process and are only willing to reward yourself when you accomplish your ultimate goal, you won’t get there. When we reward the small wins in life, those periodic treats help get us to the finish line.
So, when reviving a long-forgotten goal, be strategic. To succeed, you don’t want to take the same approach that you took the first time around. Instead, you want to re-vamp your goal, if necessary. And you want to improve your strategy for accomplishing it. If you do so, you’ll succeed and prove to yourself that you can do whatever you set your mind to! (To read about 5 steps you can take to make your goal a reality, click here.)
Many of us live in fear of “not being good enough.” We fear that we haven't been given the gifts Read more
We often think of highly successful people as folks with big egos. They are people with confidence in spades who Read more
Most of us don’t have trouble picking good goals. We are able to pick appropriate goals that suit our natural Read more
New Year's Day has come and gone, and with it we’ve made our resolutions for the coming year. They say Read more
The ability to work at home was something that I dreamed about for a long time. Unfortunately, for years, I Read more
We each have the potential be amazing individuals. There is no person on this earth who doesn’t have the potential Read more
We all have areas in our lives that we want to improve. Some folks may want to make more money. Read more
For many of us, the pandemic has been a time of slowing down. Many folks no longer commute to their Read more
