We all know the importance of setting goals in life. The most important thing is it gets you to start thinking about what you want in life and it prompts you to make a decision. But setting goals also pull you toward your ideal life, because it creates an anchor for your focus and attention. Goals ultimately help you stay on track.
The first step in the goal puzzle is to set your goals. Simple enough right? Well, many people make errors in this crucial step and they don’t follow the two cardinal rules for successful goal setting: setting clear, specific goals with a due date.
After setting goals, it is now time to go out and achieve it! And that is what we are talking about here. We’ll cover some best practices and tips that will allow you to achieve your goals after you have already set them.
Every goal will have a different plan of action. There are just too many variables and too many steps one must take to achieve a specific endeavor. In this article, we’ve compiled the most useful tips for attaining your goals.
Before you start: make sure you set your goal correctly. Ensure your goal has a timeline and is very, very clear (we don’t want ambiguous goals).
1: Get Motivated (Finding Your “Whys”)
What is the #1 key to the successful completion of goals?
Answer: Finding the Reasons. Finding Your “Whys”
Everybody says that persistence is the key to success. No one ever talks about how to get to that point though. How do you have persistence? This successful proclamation of “persistence!” has become a misnomer. It’s merely an effect, a descriptive quality we place on other successful people. It’s a stereotype.
But, the problem is, even though most people understand this concept of “persistence,” many people wonder “Why am I not persistent? Why am I not consistently engaging in actions that progress me toward achieving my goals”.
What do you think of when you think of a successful person? Ultimately you see them achieving their goals, achieving success. Digging deeper, you may think of a highly ambitious, motivated individual who is persistently taking actions that help them achieve their goals.
So motivation is the key here, right? Well, motivation, like persistence, is only a descriptive quality of that person. We still need to dive deeper… Why is this hypothetical “successful” person motivated? Why are they motivated to achieve a particular goal in life?
It’s because they have reasons to do so. So the real key here is the reason, the “why”. It’s the “why” that motivates people towards persistent action.
It’s the “whys” in life. It’s the bigger things in life. It’s your family. Your safety. It’s your happiness. It’s your family’s happiness. Getting deep down to find the why of your initial desire for that goal in the first place, is what keeps you motivated and thus creates persistence.
Your journey to attaining your goals will come with obstacles. You will have failures (remember failure is a part of success), you will learn what works and what doesn’t, and you will continue to iterate until you accomplish your goal.
I think it was W Clement Stone that said motivation is like a fire and that you need to continually add fuel to that fire. Motivational speakers and personal development books are great for this, but always remember that the true power of motivation comes from your reasons.
The genesis of internal motivation will be different for different people. Some of you may be motivated by money, others may be motivated by making a name for yourself and showing all the doubters in your life that you can actually achieve massive success.
But those are typically not the root motivational forces in your life. A root motivation for money might be freedom or security for your family. Having a chip on your shoulders and wanting to prove people wrong, could actually be a deeper subconscious desire for acceptance and approval.
Whatever it may be, you should strive to uncover your whys in life, so that you can harness this into a powerful motivational force that produces consistent action and results. If you figure this out, you may not need any of these other tips, because your motivation and determination will be sky-high, and you will figure out anything you need to in order to accomplish your goals.
2: Set Clear & Attainable Goals
Here are a few questions and tasks for you to consider before you proceed:
- Goal: Did you already set a goal? Multiple Goals? If not, do it now.
- Specific: Okay, is it crystal clear? Is it specific? If not, do make it more clear now.
- Due Date: Does it have a due date? If not, set one now.
Another thing to consider: Sure you must set clear goals, but those goals should also be reasonably attainable.
You need to find that balance between “thinking big” and picking goals that you know you can actually achieve by the given due date for your goal.
This requires you to be honest with yourself and to manage your expectations. For example, given your skillset and trajectory, is it really prudent to say “I want to make 1 Million dollars” within 3 months? It’s better to designate those loftier goals for the longer term and set smaller or milestone goals to track your progress along the way.
You should set goals that you’re realistically able to achieve. But you also don’t want to shoot too low, because it’s better to shoot for the moon and hit the fence than to shoot for the fence and hit the ground. So it’s about balance here. Definitely don’t shoot too low, but don’t have unreasonable expectations that could set yourself up for disappointment.
Setting goals out of reach can break your confidence and harm your motivation if they aren’t reached. So it may be prudent to start by setting achievable goals, so you gain momentum and get a taste of accomplishment. Remember, you can always adjust them later.
3: Develop Self-Confidence
The next step here is to have the confidence needed to get started in pursuing those goals. If you have a goal to be a manager at your place of employment in the next two years, for instance, then you have to start approaching this with confidence. This doesn’t mean only having the confidence that you can obtain this goal; it may also mean expressing this confidence to others.
The more confident you are in your performance, the more likely it is that this translates to competency, both in reality and in the perception of others. Also, the more confident you are, the more likely you are to believe you can actually achieve your goal, which is very important.
For some, faking it until you make does work. That is, some find benefit from “pretending” to be confident, only to realize that they feel more confident through the act of pretending.
But guess what improves confidence for almost everyone? Have you ever wondered where true confidence comes from? Confidence is built through the engagement of disciplines. If your goal was to become a manager or business owner for instance, what are the actions and disciplines of the person who has already achieved those?
If you develop those disciplines to engage in the behaviors and actions necessary to achieve your goal, not only will it push you towards your goal, but the confidence you gain will aid in achieving your goal. It will become a sort of positive feedback loop.
4: Create a Plan
This is the last element on which to focus before you begin actually going after your goals – creating a plan. Your plan should include strategies that you think will help you achieve results. Remember that no plan is perfect, but you must set a plan. Just set one, and understand that you can change it later, and oftentimes you will. You will see what works and what doesn’t and adapt as you proceed.
You should also have the correct mindset about anticipating obstacles along the way. Don’t fear these or dread them. Just know they are part of the process.
When planning it may help to envision yourself going after a goal, and try to put yourself in that situation a year or two down the road. How are things looking? Have you made sufficient progress toward your goals? You should also really consider and plan for any contingencies that may be needed for various obstacles along the way. For example, being fired from a job, your company closing down, or maybe even having to take personal time off. The trick is to constructively anticipate (don’t be anxious) potential obstacles, so you are ready to tackle them as they arise. You may be able to figure out how to work around them before they ever happen.
5: Break your Goals down
Your larger goals should be broken down into smaller goals, or milestones. This makes them more manageable, keeps you on track, and limits the psychological forces of procrastination. The bigger and more intimidating your goal seems, the more likely you are to procrastinate and not take action.
That is why we break goals down. Break goals down from yearly goals to monthly milestones. Break down those monthly milestones into weekly goals. Break down the weekly goals into daily goals. Do whatever makes sense to you. Everybody is different so you may have to play around with this a little bit.
When you do it in this way, you’re never losing your motivation, you’re not procrastinating and you’re retaining the necessary confidence to continue. Also, you can measure and assess this milestone as you tweak your actions.
6: Monitor Your Progress
Now, once you begin your journey of attaining your goals, a key activity will be monitoring your progress as it relates to your goal’s deadline. This isn’t really something you want to do a year down the road after you set out to go after your set goals; this is something you want to do constantly! – Either daily or weekly.
You want to take a regular inventory of your daily habits, your actions, and your results to see how well you’re advancing toward success. Over time, you’re going to find areas where you can improve your efficiency, you are going to find things that don’t work, and you will ultimately have to pivot until you start seeing progress. Goal achievement isn’t some finite path that’s set in stone. It’s a very flexible and organic process, subject to constant changes, depending on myriad factors.
7: Keep your focus
It’s very important that you keep your focus, and stay on the path. You will find along the way, more often than not, that you will be tempted to change the plan of your goals or even the goals themselves. This is okay. Remember goals should be flexible.
But the key is to find the balance between flexibility and persistence. You need to know the difference between giving up or procrastination and pivoting your goals to meet your vision.
You might find different job offers that are enticing at the moment. You might think that something currently sounds great, but 6 months later you grew and decided a goal wasn’t for you anymore. ,
You don’t have to stay on a fixed, rigid path; but you do have to stay on a path that’s striving toward your vision. Never, ever abandon your vision for your life. Allow your goals to be a flexible tool that you change to meet your vision.
8: Reflect and Improve
If things aren’t going very well in your drive to obtain your goals, then you need to be very honest about this. Don’t consider that it’s just a passing trend or bad luck. You should consider this a misalignment between the goals you have set and your actions are taken to achieve them. By approaching the topic with this sort of honesty, it allows you to change the parameters here. You get to keep goals in mind and get to keep chasing them, but you reflect honestly and improve the route you take to get there.
9: Allow your goals to be flexible
Most people as they’re chasing down their goals and working toward success, find a point in time where they have a sudden change of heart and realize they don’t want the initial goal they set.
Some may think that they must “persist” so they continue to work towards their goal anyways. This leads to unhappiness. This is why anchoring your goals to your vision is massively helpful. This allows you to have a more relatively stable vision, that your goals can adapt to. You should be able to pivot and set different and new goals. You should be able to change your goals. Your goals should allow for flexibility.
There are many instances where people will run into their goals, only to find out that their goal is actually unobtainable for whatever reason. Before you even get started, you must recognize that balance between persistence, compromise, and flexibility within your goals. Those that aren’t willing to be flexible with their goals can fail to achieve true happiness in life.
10: Refine Your Goals
As we’ve talked about already, you should allow yourself to refine your goals along the way. Your goals align with your given desires at any given point in time. That is why they are subject to change over time. Maybe you become a parent for the first time and have a change in priorities. Maybe you fall in or out of love, maybe you have to move due to a job, etc.
There’s no way to predict how life will turn out. Therefore you should allow your goals to be flexible enough to match your vision, but you should ensure your vision will be a rock (though that could change too, but less often). You should have a mindset that is diligent and persistent, but also allows you can refine and fine-tune your goals toward your vision.
