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Goals setting is such an important practice to help you reach your highest potential and live your best life. As Tony Robbins said, “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible”. However, setting goals without a plan to achieve them is like preheating your oven with no food to put in it. This article will teach you how to successfully set goals and achieve them.
How to set goals and achieve them
1. The quest
You first need to determine what you want your life to look like. Your goals have to be meaningful and inspire you. They have to be something that you have a strong desire to accomplish. If you have never set goals in the past, it is recommended to spend time reflecting on your current state and understand where you want to go in the future.
Below is a few suggested journaling prompts you can use.
- What makes me the happiest?
- What is a skill that I admire most in others?
- What is my main short-term goal for each quarter this year?
- What are my top 3 long-term goals?
- What are my priorities? Personal? Professional? Health? Relationship?
- What could I do to step outside of my comfort zone?
- When I have a great day, what happened in that day?
- What is a habit I’d like to stop or start?
- What is a limiting belief I hold about myself?
- Do I have a bucket list? What is on there?
Ultimately, you are trying to understand what you want to accomplish in the short and long term that would enhance the quality of your life. At this point, list all the goals you are thinking about. Do not rule anything out just yet, even if it sounds crazy or impossible.
TIP: Make sure your goals are specific so that you can determine what success looks like. For example, “I want to read more” is not specific. However, I want to read 1 book per month would be.
TIP 2: Understand your “why” behind each goal. You have to be clear and define why you want to accomplish a goal. If you want to read more, your “why” might be to keep your brain sharp and increase your knowledge. The “why” is so important. When your motivation is low, you will need to recenter and refocus on your goal. Your “why” will make this much easier.
2- The reality check
To set goals and achieve them, you need to be truthful with yourself and realistic about what is possible. If I have a goal to go to the moon, I will need to think long and hard about what would be required to accomplish this. I might realize this is not feasible due to a health condition, the amount of education required, etc.
It is important to reflect on your current skills, motivation, timing, natural strengths, and abilities. Everybody has the potential to learn new things and grow. However, you must be realistic about what will be required from you. Are you willing to commit to the necessary efforts? Do you have the right resources right now? Furthermore, you need to ensure your goals are lining up with any values that you have.
Remember that because a goal may not be realistic right now doesn’t mean it will never be possible. Perhaps I can’t remodel my entire house in the first 3 months of the year but I can do it in the next 2 years. Ultimately, in this step, you are aligning what you want with what is possible right now.
At this point, organize your goals in 3 lists.
- Realistic goals you want to achieve now
- Realistic goals you may want to achieve later
- Goals that seem unrealistic for now (You should revisit this list from time to time. Things evolve and some things could become possible later)
3- Write down your goals
There are many reasons why writing down your goals is crucial to your success.
First, writing something down makes you up to 1.4 times more likely to remember it. Having your goals top of mind at all times is important to keep your focus. Once your goals are written down, it is easy to display them somewhere they will be highly visible to you.
TIP 3: When writing down your goals, organize them by categories. It will further increase your ability to remember them. It will also give you a good visual to ensure you have goals for all important areas of your life.
Second, when writing down your goals, you get another opportunity to assess them. You get to make sure your goals don’t overlap in timing, don’t require too much (money, time, efforts, etc.), or that you don’t have too many of them.
Third, once your goals are written, they become real. Mentally, it is harder to not follow through with your goals once you have committed to them on paper.
Lastly, it is easier to review your goals periodically when they are written down.
TIP 4: I have used the commit30 planner for 3 years and I LOVE it! This amazing planner includes a vision board page to plan your entire year, monthly goal pages, and so much more. I highly recommend it.
4- Create an action plan
A goal without a plan is like a bunch of ingredients without a recipe. You need to write down how you plan to achieve a goal. If we continue with the book example, the action plan could look like this:
- Research books that would interest me
- Select and procure the first book
- Go to bed earlier and read for 30 minutes each night
- Pick and procure the next book once I have less than 50 pages left in the current book
5- Share your goals
Sharing your goals with friends and family increases your success rate. That is because you are making your commitment to something you care about visible and real to others. You not only want to achieve it as to not disappoint yourself, but now you also don’t want to disappoint a loved one. If you give up, you might feel that you owe an explanation to someone. Sharing your goals is a great way to make yourself more successful.
6- Review and adjust
Incorporate a goal review session into your schedule. You should review your goals based on their cadence. Therefore, if you have daily goals you should review them daily. Review the weekly goals weekly and monthly goals monthly. Add new goals as you complete some to continue to strive to improve yourself and your life.
When you fail to meet a goal, reflect on why it did not happen. Was this something outside of your control, like an illness? Or perhaps you realize the goal was too aggressive and you now understand you should have allocated more time. That is okay. Be compassionate with yourself. It is important to understand why it happened so that you can make adjustments and succeed next time.
7- Celebrate
Do not forget to celebrate your success and achievements. You would for a friend or loved one, wouldn’t you?
It is even a good idea to pick your reward upfront. It will give you extra motivation to achieve your goal. Additionally, the joy you will feel when you celebrate your accomplishment will create a positive memory in your brain. This will make you even more likely to continue to achieve future goals.
In conclusion
This article focused on how to set goals and achieve them. Goals are important for your personal growth and life fulfillment. It can help go from living to thriving if done successfully.
I hope you learned new information or read something that resonated differently with you. I hope you are walking away feeling motivated to go create goals for yourself. Go live your best life!!!
Cat xx