How to achieve your goals the simple way

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Goals are your dreams, aspirations, wants and wishes. With each goal you achieve you increase your sense of self worth and therefore your confidence and self esteem. Goals are your key to moving yourself to a better life, to being happier and to giving yourself a huge boost.

The trick is to set goals that are right for you and to make them as easy as possible to achieve. With each goal you don’t achieve you make a dent in your confidence and your self esteem. If you have a history of unsuccessful goals you will be less likely to even try.

Treat your goals and dreams with the care and respect they deserve by giving yourself the maximum chance of achieving them.

Here are my top tips for choosing the goals that are right for you and for ensuring that you achieve them.

Choose your own goals for the right reasons

Jim tells me he wants to change his career and find a better job.

Jim is getting married next year. His future wife, Sarah, would like to have a house on the same estate as her sister. In a few years time she would like to be a stay at home mum. They have talked about it and they have decided that Jim needs to change career.

When Jim and I talk about the situation it becomes clear that he wants to make Sarah happy. However he doesn’t really want to change career. His real dream is to be promoted because he really loves what he does.

If Jim is going to be true to himself and happy in the future he and Sarah need to find another way to satisfy Sarah’s dream of the big house.

Have a clear vision of what your goal will give you

When you want to turn a dream into reality it is important that you can visualize what success will look like as that vision acts like a catalyst and propels you towards your goal. There is a lot of power in that.

Jen tells me that her goal is to lose weight. She wants to lose 28 pounds. She is a good looking woman and she does not appear to be overweight.

When I ask Jen to tell me the benefits she will get from losing weight all she can tell me is that  her  husband will find her attractive again and will move back in with her.

Jen’s goal really isn’t about losing weight it  is about getting her husband back.

If the outcome of achieving your goal is to change someone else then your goal is flawed from the start. The purpose of a goal is to give you something that you really want and something that is in your gift to achieve. If it is a goal that you really want and it is done to benefit you and not to fit in with someone else your motivation will be greater.

Get the knowledge you need

When I started to get serious about losing weight I decided to find out a bit about nutrition and food. The more knowledge I gained the more choices I had about what I ate. Losing weight became less of a struggle because I didn’t feel restricted or deprived of food. Almost 9 months on I am still 23 pounds lighter than I was this time last year.

When you have dream or goal, know what is involved. What will it take to achieve it? You may give up on a goal after a couple of months because you feel you that you are not getting the results you expected. If you knew from the outset that it would take four months to achieve you would keep going because you were prepared for the time it would take.

What knowledge or tools do you need to help you?

Have a cunning plan

A few years ago I took part in a Moon Walk in Edinburgh. The Moon Walk is a 13 mile or 26 mile power walk through a city for a breast cancer charity. At the time I was not really into fitness. I did some hill walking but that was about it.

The organisers sent out a booklet with a training plan outlining the type of training I would need to do each week from February until the walk itself at the end of June. It gave a target of the number of miles that I needed to walk each week and the other forms of exercise and stretching that I would need to do to ensure that I would be fit enough for the walk itself.

If you had a business goal you would plan out the stages. You would know what you need to achieve as you went along so that you were on track for your goal. It is no different in your personal life. It is not enough to say “I want to live abroad” and expect it to happen. Plan out each action step you need to take. After all a goal without action will always remain an unfulfilled dream.

What tips do you have for achieving goals?

What goal would you really like to achieve in the next 90 days?

Tagged as: achieve, achieve your goals, deserve, goal, goals, grow model, human behavior, human interest, management, maximum, motivation, psychology, self esteem, self worth, setting goals, social psychology, the simple way, top tip, treats