Goal setting is definitely one of the most powerful techniques that we can utilize to help us to achieve whatever we want in our lives.
The problem is that even with goal setting, most people still fail to accomplish what they want. How is that so?
If you want to know how to achieve your goals, you surely want to read this article from the start to the end.
I’m going to share with you the 5 powerful principles that you can take action immediately to materialize your dreams and reach your goals.
Of course, it will only work if you work on these principles. If you think that goal setting doesn’t work, it is NOT.
It is not that your goals don’t work. It is you that don’t work. So let’s cut it and dive straight into these 5 powerful principles right now…
Too many times, I have seen people set goals that are not actionable. And with the term actionable, I mean something that can be acted upon.
For example, if you set your goal as to lose 10 pounds, do you know that this goal is not actionable?
Losing 10 pounds is not an action and it is not something that you can work on.
The things that you can act on are like hitting the gym once a day, from 5pm to 6pm; doing 20 push-ups; swim 20 rounds in the pool, etc. These are things that you can actually DO.
This is what I mean by actionable. When you set goals that are not actionable, it creates a gap in your mind and you leave your mind empty and don’t know what to do.
When you say that your goal is to lose 10 pounds, your mind will think about all sorts of ways to lose those 10 pounds. And guess what, you will get distracted and lose focus because there are just too many ways you can achieve it.
For instance, you can go on diet, eat only vegetables and fruits, go to the gym an hour a day, swim an hour a day, jog an hour a day, etc.
You see, there are countless of ways you can take. So you will lose the focus. And when you lose your focus, you lose the drive to take action on your goals.
Here are a few keys that your goals must have:
Can you measure your goals? Saying that you want to get rich is not measurable. You must have a number there.
Do you know that everyone has a different definition of being rich? For some people, having $10,000 in the bank is considered rich. For some other people, having $100,000 is considered poor.
So you need to define your at your own term. This is why you need to have a measurable goal.
Saying that you want to be rich is not good enough. Losing weight or getting slim is not measurable. Make it measurable so you can track your progress each day.
This will be a little difficult when it comes to long-term goal setting and planning. Most people are able to create very specific short term goal, but their goals are a little blur when it comes to the longer term.
Don’t worry, this is very common. For long-term goal such as 3 years, 5 years or even 10 years down the road, you just need to have an idea, a vision or a picture of it.
If you can make it specific and vivid, it is much better. If you can’t, just be as clear and specific as possible will do.
The most important is your short-term goal. Your short-term goals must be clear. Just like your 1-month goals and your 3-month goals.
You need to be specific because only then you will know what you need to do to get there.
You can then tell if you are moving toward or moving away from your goals. You will also know exactly when you have accomplished them.
Remember, your goals must be actionable. You must be able to measure your goals. If you want to lose weight, the first thing you need to do is to weight yourself.
You need to know where are you right now, where exactly you would like to go and you must be able to measure the progress.
If you have no idea how to set goals, read this: How to Set Goals Step by Step
One of the biggest reasons people fail to achieve what they want and eventually give up is because their goals don’t motivate them.
You see, people are not lazy. It is just that they set the wrong goals that don’t drive them.
I believe that there are times when you are extremely hard working and extremely motivated.
Some people can play computer games until late night and they sleep for only few hours. Some people are able to wake up as early as 5am for jogging, to travel to a new place, to play golf, etc.
Therefore, people are not lazy. They just don’t know how to channel their motivation into the right place.
If you love to play computer games and you can talk about it all time, can you imagine what would happen if you can redirect this drive into achieving your goals?
Powerful, right? Nothing can ever stop you then.
Thus, the key to achieving what you want in life is to be able to motivate yourself toward it. If you can motivate yourself toward taking the action, you will definitely get result from it.
The problem is how are you going to do that?
I believe that there are 2 factors that most people don’t take into consideration when setting their goals. No wonder they lack the motivation to persist until they succeed.
Here are the 2 factors:
Are your goals something that will spark your passion? If you set goal to achieve something and you need to do something that you are not passion about, I can tell you that there is a high chance that you will give up before you achieve it.
Let me give you an example that happened to me. I can type and write in the personal development industry, especially in the topics such as goal setting, success, motivation, mindset, etc.
However, if you ask me to type an article in a different field like accounting or the weight loss industry, I can’t do it.
It is going to take me a lot of willpower and time to get an article written. The issue is that I’m not passion in these industries. I’m passionate with topics about success.
I will face a hard time if you ask me to write an article in an area that I don’t like. How can you excel in the areas that you have no passion?
This is why successful people always dedicate their outstanding results to passion. They said that you must do something that you are passionate with.
Same goes for goal setting. If you set to achieve a goal that you are not passionate in, it will be difficult for you. You will take a lot of willpower and energy to overcome the mental toughness.
So choose to align your goals with something that you are passionate with.
We were wrongly programmed since when we were young. In school, if you do good in maths and you fail badly in science, what is the advice you will be given?
You need to work hard to study science because you are bad in it and spend less time in maths since you are good in it.
Well, if you look at all the successful leaders out there, they don’t operate this way. They study and continue to improve what they are good at. They ignore or delegate on subjects that they’re weak in.
If you want to be normal, be the jack of all trade and master of none. However, if you want to be great, you must focus in building your strength.
How did Michael Jordan achieved outstanding success in basketball? Do you think that he is great in it because he tries to master all kind of sports?
Nope, he focuses 100% of his effort into basketball. That is why he becomes the master in basketball. Same goes for all other successful athletes out there.
Same principle applies in goal setting. You must align your goals with things that you are strong with.
This is almost like being passionate with your goals. When you focus in improving in areas that you are weak, it is going to take you a lot of effort and time to make you okay in it.
Focus and develop your strength to the next level and you will become the master and able to produce extraordinary results in it.
These are the 2 factors that you need to consider because they can drive you and motivate you in your journey.
Think about it, are you willing to wake up earlier and stay later to work on something you’re passionate with or something that you hate?
Do you think it is easier to get motivated doing things you are good in? You know the answer.
So align your goals with your passion and your strength. If you can’t, find a way. Else just outsource or delegate some of the tasks.
Most people thought that goal setting is a one-time work. They write down what they want to accomplish for the year before the New Year or in the beginning of the year, and that’s it.
No wonder most New Year resolution never works. Goal setting is NOT a one-off work. You need to do it every day.
What I mean by this is that you need to consistently reminding yourself about your goals. We are creatures of habits. We tend to forget what we said and what we promised ourselves.
You promised yourself that you will stop eating junk food this moment, but the next moment you will grab the potato chips and eat it.
This is why we need to program our goals and what we want into our subconscious mind.
One of the main reasons we write down our goals is because we want to remind ourselves about them.
You will never do anything about your goal if it is not in your head, isn’t it?
One way to program something into your subconscious mind is to always think about it consciously.
You make the effort to think and remind yourself about your goals until it becomes your habit and automatic.
Successful people always think about their dreams and their goals. They talk about what they want all the time. They discuss about how to make improvement and how to hit their targets.
They dream about it all the time. They breathe their dreams and they sleep with their goals in their mind. They have made it their habit to constantly think about what they want.
That is why they are the ones who take the most focused action and produce the most results.
There are many ways how you can program your dreams and your goals into your subconscious.
What I do is that each morning after I wake up, I will write my top 10 goals into my goals’ book. I do this every single day, without fail.
I remind myself what I wanted to accomplish each morning. And I know what to do right after that.
You can try this technique, it works and it is very powerful. You don’t have to follow exactly like what I did. You adjust and follow your own style.
Beside this, you can put your goals somewhere you can see often. For example, you can put your goal next to the mirror in your bathroom, so that you can see it every day when you brush your teeth.
You just need to be creative to do this.
Jack Canfield, the author of Chicken Soup for the Soul book, suggested people to write their goals in a card where they can keep in their wallet.
So every time when they open their wallet, they will see their goal and remind themselves about it. Brilliant!
What can you do to remind yourself? Here are more powerful techniques…
Visualization is truly a powerful and proven method to materialize what you want in life. Studies have shown that people who train physically in sports will perform equally with those who use visualization to practice.
It has becomes more and more popular and a lot of successful leaders are using this method, especially in the sports world.
Affirmation is another great technique to remind yourself about your goal. Harv Eker in his book, Secrets of the Millionaire Mind suggested we use declarations instead of affirmations.
Both are almost the same and both could work well. Here are some examples:
“I’m a successful internet marketer and I’m making millions of dollars from the internet.”
“I’m a genius and I allow myself to be powerful.”
“I’m a money magnet. Money flows to me easily from both expected and unexpected sources.”
What you need to do is to say these declarations out loud a few times throughout your day. They will give you the energy and support you and in the same time, remind you of what you want.
And if you are a fan of Harv Eker, you may want to do this after your declaration – point your finger at your head and say, “I have a millionaire mind.”
Out of all the methods to program your goals into your mind, do you want to know the ultimate technique?
Action! When you take action, you don’t only remind yourself about what you want, you are involving yourself into doing it.
You are actually closing the gap between the physical worlds with your dreams.
Without action, no matter how much you remind yourself about what you want, they will never come true.
Always remember this, action is the ONLY way to bring what you want into the physical world.
Look at all the things you have around you now. Your computer, your laptop, your mouse, your table, your house, the painting on the wall, the chair you’re sitting on, etc. They were once an idea in someone’s head.
And those people took action and work on their ideas. And this is how you get to have the things that are surrounding you now.
Action is the bridge connecting your dreams and reality. And you must build that bridge.
Habits are what determine who you are. If you want to achieve your goal, you must develop the right habit so that you will move toward your goal.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle
Successful people are successful because they have developed empowering habits that help them to build the results that they want.
You can never achieve outstanding success if you don’t develop habits that support you.
Your habits are everything. They determine who you are and what will become of you. This is why it is important to get rid of your destructive habits and develop empowering ones.
Some people have the habit of watching TV for a long time. While some people use those time to read books to improve themselves.
You may not notice the difference in the short term. However, over the long-term the habit will have a great impact in your life.
If you make it a habit to read 2 books a month, within 3 years, you will have read 72 books. And if this continues for the next 10 years, can you imagine how this habit will influence you?
Here’s an interesting story I would love to share with you…
Once, there was a student who went to Bruce Lee and asked Bruce to teach him all of his martial art skills. And to the student’s surprise, Bruce Lee said…
“Well, there are 2 cups full of water in my hand. If you want to get all of my water, you must first empty 1 of the cup, which is your cup.”
“Same goes for the martial art skills. If you want to learn all of my skills, you must first ’empty’ yours. You must learn to unlearn before you can soak up any new skill.”
The lesson here is simple. If you want to be successful, you must first unlearn and get rid all of your bad habits and your negative mindset.
Once you did that, only then you can adopt the new empowering habits and create a positive mindset within you.
Success is not all about learning the techniques and habits to success. It is also about letting go of your bad habits.
There are many winning habits that you can develop. Here’s one of the articles that you can learn from:
10 Major Differences between Successful and Unsuccessful People
In the article above, you will discover the differences between the successful and the unsuccessful.
Don’t do what the unsuccessful did. And in the same time, make it a habit to do what the successful people did.
You will greatly boost your success by just getting rid of your bad habits.
One of the ways how to achieve your goals is by believing in it. If you don’t believe in it, you will never do it.
You will never do things that you don’t believe it is going to work. Would you start a business if you don’t believe that you are going to succeed in it? Not likely.
Would you drive a car if you don’t believe in the braking system? Most likely not. Would you take a flight if you don’t believe that an aeroplane can fly?
Now, do you think you are going to take a lot of action if you don’t believe that your goals are possible?
Long ago, when there’s no aeroplane, the Wright Brothers came along and wanted to build a vehicle that could fly. The Wright Brothers were not engineers. They were just bicycle repairman at that time.
However, they possessed one thing that most people don’t. They believed that they can build an aeroplane. And they did.
So you see, you will never tap into your full potential and take committed action if you don’t believe in it.
You can’t go into a business half-hearted. You’re going to fail. This is why you need to believe in these 3 things…
Yes, you must believe that your goals are possible. For your dreams to become a reality, you must first believe that your dreams are achievable and they are possible.
Human can’t fly? Look at the Wright Brothers who invented the aeroplane. They believed that it is possible to fly.
Next, you have to believe that you can do it. First you need to believe that your goals are possible, and then you need to believe that you can achieve them.
There’s no point to believe that your dreams are possible, but you don’t believe that you have the potential to achieve it.
You must trust that everything is working out perfectly. Even at tough times, you have to believe that it is working out for you.
Understand that difficult times come for a reason – they have come to pass. Difficult times are not here to stay.
If you’re facing some hard times now, read this: How to Overcome Tough Times and Succeed
Look at the ocean waves and look at the sunrise and sunset, they are in perfect order. As long as you do the necessary work, things will work out for you.
Hence, these are the 3 beliefs that you must adopt. First, believe that whatever you want to achieve is possible. Next, trust yourself and believe in your own capability. And finally, believe that everything is working out in the perfect order, so just focus in doing the right thing.
There are reasons why people fail to accomplish what they set out for. If you fail to achieve your goals, find out the reason.
Why do you fail? Is it that you don’t have the motivation? Do you get distracted? Do you procrastinate? Do you take enough action?
Knowing your reasons will greatly improve your chances of achieving what you want, if you choose to press on and not giving up.
So now you know how to achieve your goals. All you need to do is to follow through these 5 powerful principles that will guide you toward your goals.
Make your plan and take action to achieve what you want in life now.
Let me know what you think about this article. Drop me your comment below.
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Very impressed with your words..it's really encouraging. Thanks n best wishes
Cheers Preethi... :)