How to (Finally!) Achieve Your Goals

You’ve made some resolutions for the New Year…and you remember making a few of the same ones a year ago. Just the thought of failing makes you cringe. You do want to reach those goals, but…

Begin…With the End in Mind

Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, offers a rather novel technique:

“Imagine your funeral and listen to what you would like the eulogist to say about you. This should reveal exactly what matters most to you in your life. Use this frame of reference to make all your day-to-day decisions so that you are working toward your most meaningful life goals.”

In my last post, I explained why you need to start visualizing to really feel what matters to you most. Now, let’s talk about what you need to do to get moving.

Make Room In Your Life

It’s vital to visualize what you want. By having a clear vision of where you want to be you can explore the gap between that point and where you are now. This allows you to identify the skills, resources and characteristics that will take you to your goal.

Covey also reminds us what we need to ‘give up’ in order to move forward. In other words, we need to ‘make room’ in our life for our new goals…and by letting go and giving up, we help create a new mindset of positivity.

Here’s the list of 10 things you need to give up to move forward:

1. Letting the opinions of others control your life.
2. The shame of past failures.
3. Being indecisive about what you want.
4. Procrastinating on the goals that matter to you.
5. Choosing to do nothing.
6. Your need to be right.
7. Running from problems that should be fixed.
8. Making excuses rather than decisions.
9. Overlooking the positive points in your life.
10. Not appreciating the present moment.

Before moving on think about each item on this list and think about where this could be showing up in your life. Write each situation you identify down, making a list of items you can tackle one at a time.

The more items you give up on this list the faster you’ll achieve your goals.

Do Something NOW!

Well-known author Alan Lakein once said, “Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it NOW.”

Using the eulogy technique above, write down your Lifetime Goals.

Next, giving yourself the next five years to make some progress, what are the milestones that you need to hit in order to achieve your lifetime goals?

Then, giving yourself the next year to make some progress, which of these milestones can you achieve?

Before you even get started with a plan of action – be realistic! Don’t set yourself up for failure before you even begin by setting goals that are impossible to achieve.

And don’t forget about your mindset: As I’ve said before, your goals – and how achievable they actually are – are related strongly to the mindset that created them.

Everyone’s goals are different and everyone’s starting point is different – the plan you ultimately create to meet your goals may be very different from the next person. Just think about how many different approaches there are to common goals like weight loss or fitness.

You may find that you need to tweak your action plan as you go along, or even that you need to tackle the goal with an entirely different approach. Find what works for you and do it!

PILOT the Pitfalls

Perhaps the biggest snag of goal setting is lack of specificity. Goals need to be precise – and measurable. Christopher Knight lists common pitfalls of goal setting, among them: not knowing “why” you set a particular goal, lack of a firm deadline, not considering consequences of a goal, and stating your goal in the future tense.

One common mistake I often see with my clients is setting too many goals at one time – this strategy will spread your energy, attention and resources too thinly and will quickly lead to overwhelm.

In his book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, Greg McKeown describes the lack of progress and productivity we suffer if we try to do too much. He argues that by focusing on just a few things, our highest priorities, we actually free ourselves to achieve more, be more creative and satisfied with our lives.

Just Do It!

With so much information out there about how to define your goals and what to do to actually reach them, it’s easy to become bogged down by all the do’s and don’ts.

When that happens, you may find yourself putting off that goal until a “better time” or until you can come up with a new and improved plan. Don’t make this mistake!

Get out there and get into action! And remember, even stumbling blocks can actually serve as a foundation for your success.

In a previous post, I suggested that you change your perception of “failure”. Is there really such a thing as “failure”? That’s up to you to decide.

What you perceive as a loss may actually be the foundation for your success. Remember Edison? Before he succeeded in inventing the lightbulb, he “failed” numerous times. But he never gave up – and in the process, his discoveries led to several other inventions and key scientific principles. Think about that the next time you’re ready to quit!

As James Joyce so aptly said: “Mistakes are the portals of discovery.”

Have you set a big scary goal for this year? Share your goal in the comments below!

Resources

Accomplished: How to Go from Dreaming to Doing: A simple, step by step system that gives you the foundation and structure to take your goals and make them happen.

Create Goals that are Worthy of you: If you are done with either pursuing vanilla goals, suffering through the struggle of goals that are not aligned with your strengths, or dealing with heartbreak of an unattainable goal this course is for you!

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