Establish Your Marching Orders

The last month we’ve been looking at utilizing the tools you have in order to improve yourself, others, and your brand. Today we look at establishing a marching order. To put it simply a marching order is a military term used to describe the orders given to soldiers when heading on a march towards a goal. For yourself, marching orders define expectations, desired outcomes, and how you will work with others. Without clear goals, you’ll stay stuck. So today we will look at a few tips at establishing and reaching your goals.

Write Down Your Goals

If you have a long list of goals but have trouble keeping them straight, then you need to begin writing down your goals. Writing them down will allow you to organize what you are working towards. Write down your goals and review them regularly to track your progress. You can't expect to reach these small or large milestones if you’re not doing the required activities to meet your goal. Keeping your priorities in one place will allow you to keep yourself on the path of getting your goals done.

Consider getting a digital or physical goal planner. Whether it be an app or a piece of paper, write down and organize your goals by priority. Have fun with it and buy yourself dinner or dessert to enjoy while you work through your priorities. Include all goals, not just those that are work or education orientated. Take the time to think of everything and anything that you want to do. This practice will help your goals stick in your mind better and will allow you to keep living life, not just surviving it.

Create Manageable Goals

We’ve all been faced with situations where our to-do list threatens to overwhelm us. It becomes so much that it actually causes us to stop doing anything. It’s the “freeze” response (rather than a fight or flight response). The best solution to this problem is to break down large goals and to-do list items into more manageable tasks. It may sound counter-intuitive to give yourself a longer to-do list when you already feel overwhelmed with the shorter version, but seeing more manageable goals will help you feel more in control. Breaking long-term goals into achievable milestones will allow you to climb the mountain of success with more ease than you ever expected. Perhaps this is an overused phrase, but don’t bite off more than you can chew…or you might choke. Your big goals can be reached, but they can’t be reached without taking smaller steps first.

One tip that works for me when trying to create manageable goals is to separate my tasks into a few groups. First, I have the tasks that are the least time-consuming (I can get them done in less than 45 minutes). Then, I have my middle group, which consists of larger tasks that may have a few subtasks under them. Typically, these tasks will take a few hours but aren’t complicated or require much input from other people. Finally, I have my third group of tasks, which is really just a hold cell for goals that need to be broken into smaller tasks. Until I break up these goals into smaller tasks, I won’t even bother touching them. By dividing up my many tasks, I have a better handle on what actually needs to get done. If I only have an hour, I know to only work on a task that will take that amount of time or I won’t get a task done. This helps manage my own expectations and puts me on the track to success.

Share Your Goals

Sharing your goals with a trusted friend or mentor is a great way to ensure you're held accountable for them. However, sometimes you may find yourself oversharing, and begin feeling like you are expected to stay within the confines of what you shared with the friend. While this is a real issue a lot of us deal with, we need to be able to surround ourselves with people who are willing to not only keep you accountable, but also to work with you to reach your goals at the speed you are able to in the season of life you are in. This can be a two-sided relationship, share goals with each other, and come alongside each other in order to reach those goals one step at a time.

Celebrate Your Achievements

Surround yourself with winners who are willing to celebrate your achievements too. Even celebrating small achievements helps to maintain motivation. You need to acknowledge that each little step is an essential part of the journey you take to reach your goals. There may be times when you fall behind or even fall into unforeseen circumstances, and that’s okay; you need to celebrate getting through those times and move on to the next thing on your to-do list. Celebrating your achievements will allow you to mark everything that has been completed, and allow you to have hope in the middle of extremely busy schedules that never seem to end.

Conclusion

Having and holding to marching orders will allow you to truly get things done effectively and efficiently. They will keep you from becoming a slave to the daily grind. Keeping to a marching order will allow you to be able to look back on how far you have come. Remember, for yourself, marching order defines expectations, desired outcomes, and how you will work with others. Without clear goals, you’ll stay stuck.

Click the links below to see more blogs in this series. Until next time!