Taking time out to refine and review will help you reach your goals - Sophie Mei Lan, YEP opinion

The pangs of guilt slowly faded away with each stroke of the paintbrush.
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It was a weekday afternoon and I was sat painting pottery with two of my best friends in business and in life. When you’re busy with work, family and health, it’s hard to take time out to work ‘on’ rather than ‘in’ your business but actually I’ve learnt that this is exactly what you need to achieve your goals in all areas of life, even in uncertain times.

Setting goals has helped me to direct my life, and putting systems in place has helped me to have daily processes in order to achieve my goals but my biggest ‘success’ is that I always ‘show up’ for myself and for others because that’s the type of person I choose to be nowadays.

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Like most, I used to just set a long list New Year’s Resolutions then as I also celebrate Chinese New Year, this would give me a buffer in order to fail at my resolutions and reset them come my ‘second new year.’

I went wrong in a lot of aspects of setting resolutions because I would just dream big and vaguely think that I could somehow change my life by simply writing lots of goals down and then folding up the paper and hiding it away.

But I made the decision to immerse myself in personal development and self-help books in order tom take some control over my life, fitness, business and mental health. Slowly, I learnt themes in order to achieve goals I needed to be accountable, focus on rituals and also be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timebound).

Luckily, in tandem with becoming a personal development geek, I finally found my tribe of West Yorkshire business women to support each other.

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From the CEO of Simply Ladies club to Leeds fashion design house Wake Bespoke, from Leeds blogger Mum Full of Dreams to fellow MyBump2Baby directory and ELA Creations Photography, being surrounded by people of similar values and ambition spurs me on and gives me the confidence to fail lots in order to reach my idea of holistic success.

The best way for me when it comes to goal setting is to have weekly check-in sessions over the phone with an accountability buddy to set goals and reflect on the previous week.

These can be anything to do with your life, work, health and fitness. I have set a whole array of intentions from building muscle in my legs to finishing off the first draft of my new book to having more quality time with the kids or finding a virtual assistant.

These goals are also part of a bigger picture as I have a number of life and business coaches - one is my step dad Mark Scott - who help me to plan long, medium and short-term goals quarterly. This helps me to refine my goals rather than overwhelm myself with ideas and opportunities.

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It then means I can break thins down into as small steps as ‘habit stacking’ - where you associate one daily habit with a new one e.g. “I will get dressed in gym gear as soon as I step out of bed” or “I will do a social media post whilst the kettle boils.”

But my main tip is to make time to work on goals and systems regularly as this does save you time in the end.

So not only this week did I sit with my accountability buddies in a pottery shop in Roundhay but then I finished off the week with a day of business development and life planning at my house and, rather than tell myself it’s an indulgence, I now know that this ‘time out’ is a priority.

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