How to Reach Your Goals

Posted on January 5, 2008
Filed Under goals |

Most of us set goals at one time or another in our lives. There are a few people who consistently meet and exceed their goals on a regular basis. It doesn’t seem to matter whether they are financial goals or personal goals or career related goals. What is it that they do differently than the rest of us?

Lou Tice of The Pacific Institute has a free motivational email that goes out daily called The Winners Circle. He often talks about setting goals and it has made me think about the difference between people who set goals and people who reach them consistently.

Set a goal. Goals should be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time specific. Say for instance, your goal is to save money. How much money? How will you know when you have reached your goal? When do you want to have it saved by? Can you feasibly do it? If you don’t believe you can reach a goal, it is unlikely that you ever will get there. Make goals that you believe in.
Visualize. When you set a goal, sit down and think about what life is going to look like when you reach your goal. How are things going to be different? Will you have more money? Peace of mind? Will you look better? Feel better? If your goal is to buy a house, find some pictures of houses you like and put them on the refrigerator. Write down a paragraph about what it is going to feel like to achieve your goal and put it in your planner where you will read it frequently.
Steps to take. There is no point in making a goal unless you are going to take time to decide how to get there. Think of the goal as a destination on a map. It’s great to say that you are going to Hawaii but if you start out to go there and don’t have directions, the chances are good that you won’t make it. The difference between having a goal and having a dream is that you have a plan to accomplish your goal.
Do Something every single day to help you reach your goal. You spent some time determining what steps you were going to take, now take one every day. If your goal was to lose weight, forgo that dessert or take a walk around the block. It doesn’t so much matter what you do, its that you DO SOMETHING to help your reach your goal.
Reassess. Every so often along the way, you will need to look back at your goal and the steps you are taking to determine if you are making progress. I like to do this weekly because it keeps me focused on my goals and it allows me to make needed changes to my plan. If one of the steps I am taking is not working, I can change it, eliminate it or do it more often. If one is working better than others, maybe I should do it more often.
Reward. If you have set a good goal, reaching it should be the reward but sometimes you have to stop and think about why it’s rewarding. If your goal is saving money, you may need something to motivate yourself to sacrifice a few luxuries while you are saving. Write down what your reward is when you have reached your goal savings. For my emergency fund goal, this will be the peace of mind to know that if something happens, I will have the money to take care of it. I can easily visualize handing the mechanic the check when he fixes my car and how good it will be not to have to stress over how I am going to pay for it.

If you do these things for every goal you set, chances are that you will reach them. The human mind is a wonderful thing and like a computer, it is programmable. If you load the software and turn it on, it is going to run that program.

Photo Courtesy of casch52