How to Do a Monthly Goal Check In
As a month winds to a close, I think reflecting on how the month went is a good idea. Do you do a monthly goal check in? I like having a planner at the beginning of the year but I don’t always use it.
Why don’t I always use my planner? I think it’s partly because I don’t want to spend time making plans that I don’t know if I will ever reach.
Planning out a year or even writing down goals can be a scary endeavor. How do I even know what I want to accomplish? What will come along and trash my goals? Will I have the skills I need to reach the goals that I want to set? There are a lot of emotions that go along with planning the future. And who are we to plan what is going to happen to us? No one knows what is in the future and is it even right for us to think that we might have control over how our year goes?
Don’t get me wrong, I do love planning and reaching for goals. But these questions do weigh on my mind when I look at a new year.
I often have big plans at the beginning of the year. As we all know, those plans sometimes get lost in the day-to-day activities and often don’t resurface until a new year.
Reflecting on your goals
I think that reflecting at the end of each month is a good practice. It helps you make better progress on your goals. This way, goals don’t get lost.
It’s much easier to stop at the end of the month and take a look at what I’ve accomplished and what I still want to accomplish.
The planner that I made this year includes a page for “End of Month Reflection” and it’s really giving me some good ideas.
I love the beginning of the year because it’s such a fresh start. I get so inspired to make big plans. But those plans don’t always work out the way I think they should. And sometimes I even forget what my yearly goals were in the first place.
I’m going to start doing this End-of-Month Reflection each month to help me get back on track and recharge.
It has a section for celebrating the tasks I accomplished in the past month. I think it’s important to celebrate accomplishments. I don’t think I would even think of accomplishments if I didn’t have a page asking me to think about them.
Then there is a section for listing what I still need to learn. And I have another section for listing things I have to change. These are both very important things to reflect on that I haven’t seen on any other planner.
Lastly, there is a section for listing next month’s priorities. This is another good way to start off a new month and help keep me on track.
Whether you bought a planner for the year or not, a monthly goal check in is a great practice to start. You can download my free End of Month Reflection page and get back on track slaying your goals for the year.
