Have you ever set a goal, only for the excitement to achieve your goals fizzle out after a few days or week?
If you have, you’re not alone. According to research, less than 10% of people actually achieve the goals they’ve set for themselves.
This doesn’t have to be you. If you’re struggling to stay motivated and build the momentum needed to reach your goals, this guide will give you the step by step process to actually reach your goals and help you achieve your dreams.
I’ll share how to set goals the right way, and give you 8 proven strategies you can use for achieving goals, that you can use again and again.
How to set goals
Setting goals helps you get clear on what you want to achieve in the future, and gives you measurements and deadlines to define how to reach your goals. Setting goals is about having long-term goals, which define your vision, and short-term goals, which help you make measurable progress towards achieving your goals.
To stay motivated to reach your goals, the goals must be exciting and scary so you are emotionally and intellectually engaged with the result you want to achieve.
Set goals by getting clear on the end result you want to achieve, understand the importance of achieving the goal, and then track progress towards goal achievement every day.
Achieving goals
Achieving goals that are important to you requires discipline and good habits. If you want to reach your goals, set goals that have three key elements – the goals must be specific, measurable, have a deadline attached.
You won’t reach your goals unless you are emotionally invested and intellectually engaged in achieving your goals. This requires that you are committed to achieving your goals and that the goal is challenging, but feels achievable.
When you get really specific about a goal, reaching your goals becomes important and you are more motivated to take action to reach your goals.
Think of goals as the desired outcomes that are crucially important to you in your business and life.
How to achieve your goals
Here are 8 goal achievement tips that will help you achieve your goals.
1. Set your goals
How do you set your goals? Get crystal clear on a specific outcome you want to achieve within a specific timeframe. The measurable element of the goal must be a number or an event so you have a specific goal to work towards which allows you to track your progress.
This could be a long-term goal or vision that could span 3 years, 5 years or even 10 years. It could also be a short-term goal that you want to achieve in 90 days, 6 months or even 12 months.
Choose an exciting goal so you are motivated to take the first step and take action every day.
2. Understand why the goal is important
Unless you are committed to achieving your goals, no amount of motivation will help.
You become motivated and excited about goal achievement when you understand what the benefit of reaching your goals is.
By picturing yourself having achieved your goals, at a point in the future, you are excited to start making progress.
This vision also helps you stay on track, when things get hard and obstacles occur. The most effective strategy for setting goals and achieving goals starts with getting clear on the real difference achieving goals will make in your business and life.
3. Write down your goals
You are 42% more likely to achieve your goals if they are written down. Writing down your goals helps you emotionally and intellectually engage with what achieving the goal will create. What the real benefit of goal achievement is.
Start with writing down your goals and keep it somewhere safe. Then refer to your goals every day to help you stay motivated and focused to take action.
A great way to write down your goals is to write them as if you have achieved the goal already. Use language that starts with “I” such as “I am” “I created” “I achieved”.
If you’re committed to achieving your goals write them down, and then look at them daily.
4. Have both short term goals and long-term goals
Having both long-term goals and short-terms goals gives you the best chance of achieving your goals.
Your long-term goals or vision set the framework for both your personal goals and professional goals.
Having this framework allows you to have a picture of yourself in the future of who you want to be.
You can then come back to the present to set short-term goals to help you make measurable progress towards achieving your bigger vision.
It is the long-term goals that help you stay excited about your future, but it is the goal achievement of short-term goals that help you make progress and stay committed.
5. Make your goals measurable
If you’re goals are not specific and measurable they are just a wish. Measurable goals help you stay focused. You gain clarity on exactly what you want to achieve and by when, and build confidence by making measurable progress.
If you don’t have measurements in place, how can you track if you’re making progress or not? When you make progress towards your goals you feel confident and more capable to actually achieve your goals.
6. Schedule your biggest priorities
To give you the best chance to achieve your goals, you need to schedule in time to work on them. Whatever the timeframe of your goals it’s best to have a small number of specific goals to work towards every 90 days.
Then to break those quarterly goals down into monthly and weekly goals to help you stay focused.
This helps to prioritise your most important activities and schedule time in your calendar to work on them. The reason? If important activities aren’t scheduled, they have a habit of being missed.
You’re more likely to achieve your goals if you schedule where and when to take action. The added bonus is that it will make you way more focused and productive, and help remove distractions.
7. Build in accountability
Having the support of others can help you stay focused and on track to achieve your goals.
The right people can make or break your success. If you have supportive people cheering you on to achieve your goals, you’re more likely to be successful.
When you have people holding you accountable to take action, you’re more likely to stay on track, overcome obstacles and achieve your goals quicker.
If you have a negative environment and unsupportive people around you, it will be much more difficult to make progress on reaching your goals.
When you commit to something you are motivated to take action. If accountability supports that commitment you are even more likely to achieve your goals.
You can work with an accountability coach or business coach to help keep you on track or find accountability partners from your network to help you stay on track.
8. Track your progress
Using a monthly, weekly and daily goals planner can help you get clear on exactly what you want to achieve and by when.
Tracking progress on your goals helps you define exactly where to focus your time and allows you to see what progress you’re making.
When we have a clear target we want to achieve and we write down our progress towards that target it helps us avoid distraction and overwhelm.
Making progress boosts confidence. When we don’t make the progress we want, we can create course corrections to get us back on track.
If we have important goals we want to achieve, tracking progress helps build motivation and momentum.
Summing Up
If you want to achieve your goals, these tips will help you set goals in the right way, and make progress towards goal achievement every day.
Achieving goals is about building the right habits, finding the right accountability structure and celebrating progress every day, however small.
Now I’d love to hear from you.
What’s your number one tip for achieving your goals?
What stops you from making progress on your goals?
Let me know in the comments.
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SMART goals: how to achieve your goals
About the Author
Mark Pettit is the Founder of Lucemi Consulting and a small business coach to business owners who want to simplify their time, energy and focus so they can multiply their freedom, impact and results.
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