So, you want to achieve your goals and make your dreams a reality? Goal setting can be both a powerful tool that can help us achieve what we want in life, and at the same time, it can make us feel inferior when we fail to achieve the goals that we set.
We all love to set goals because the process of doing so makes us feel driven and motivated. We feel hopeful and are inspired every time we set goals and imagine about the future that we desire to live.
However, when it comes to execution and putting in the hard work, people feel paralyzed because it requires hard work and doing things that are uncomfortable.
What I want to share with you in this article is the 10 advice you should follow to achieve your goals and dreams.
If you have no idea how to set goals, make sure you check out Goal Setting Formula masterclass.
What should you do to reach your goals and make your dreams a reality? Here are the 10 advice…
1. Write down and review your goals
A lot of people get it wrong by thinking that goal setting is a one-time process. They set their goals only once and they never look at them anymore.
Don’t let this happen to you. If you are serious to achieve your goals, you must write down your goals and review them on a consistent basis. You want to program your goals into your subconscious mind.
“Out of sight, out of mind,” I bet you have heard about this before. When things are out of your sight, you tend to forget them. So, don’t allow that to happen to your goals.
Practice daily goal setting. Write down your goals every day so that you will remind yourself of what you want to achieve.
The more you direct your mind at your goals, the more likely you are going to achieve them.
Remember the phrase, “You become what you think about most of the time”? The more you write down and review your goals, the more you consciously think about your goals.
And the more you make yourself thinking about your goals, the more likely you are going to achieve them.
2. Track and measure your progress
How often do you track and measure your progress? You should do it every day. Most people don’t track and measure their progress, and then they wonder why they fail at their goals.
Don’t let this happen to you. Create a system to measure your progress. You don’t want to lose track of your goals and direction.
A lot of people fail because they are distracted by other projects and targets.
First, most people don’t track their progress and hence, they can’t tell if they are producing the results they want. They are unsure if they are moving forward or away from their goals.
And second, they are constantly bombarded by other opportunities. When they don’t see the results they want – which they don’t track in the first place – they feel like their plan is not working and they should go for other opportunities.
Thus, they abandon their goals and move on to another project. They started websites after websites, they set goals after goals, they started blogs after blogs, but they don’t stick to their plans because they don’t track their progress.
This is why measurement is important. If you don’t measure, you can’t tell if what you do is working or not.
3. Build up your commitment
Another good advice to achieve your goals and dreams is to build up your commitment. People procrastinate and don’t take action because they are not committed.
They feel good when they think about achieving success, but they are not committed to do the hard work and to do whatever it takes to achieve the success they want.
If you truly want to achieve your goals, be 100% committed. And to boost your commitment, you should involve other people. Get yourself an accountability partner, find a teammate who is willing to monitor your progress, make a public commitment by announcing your goals and progress.
When you keep your goals to yourself, nobody can keep track of your progress. And there is nobody there to encourage or hold you accountable for your goals and actions.
This is why people who keep their goals to themselves find it hard to stick to their plans. They lack commitment and accountability.
According to research done by Dr. Gail Matthews, people who write down their goals and have an accountability partner to keep track of their progress has the highest percentage of achieving their goals.
So, get an accountability partner and share your progress report with him or her.
4. Be consistent with your action
Are you being consistent with your actions? Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, one of the highest-paid and successful Hollywood actors nailed it by saying…
“Success isn’t always about greatness. It’s about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.”
You have to be consistent with what you do. You can’t set a goal to lose weight and hope to achieve that goal by exercising for just one day.
Success is about what you do on a consistent basis. It is what you do day-in and day-out that determines what you get in your life, not what you do once in a while.
The thing is that most people are not consistent with their goals.
When they first started with their goals, they are so motivated and they take massive action. But sadly, their motivation doesn’t last. After a while, they started to lose interest and they don’t take as much action as when they first began.
Eventually, they choose to give up and quit on their goals. The key is to be consistent with what you do. Stick to your plan and work on your goals until you achieve them.
Read: 10 Amazing Methods How to Be Consistent in Achieving Your Goals
5. Do the main thing first
Next, try to do the main thing first. Success is about focusing on doing the right thing. You don’t want to be busy but at the end of the day, have nothing to show for.
You want to be effective. You don’t want to focus on doing the low-impact work that is not producing you the results you desire. You want to make the most out of your day by focusing on doing the high-impact work.
Here’s a good rule from Robin Sharma you should follow, he called it the 90/90/1 Rule.
For the next 90 days, use your first 90 minutes of each day to focus and work on your #1 goal.
Imagine what will happen if you follow this rule. After 3 months, you will see the results you want. Focus on doing the right thing that will move you toward your goals.
6. Constantly upgrade yourself
If you are earning 4 figures a month and you want to earn 5 figures, what should you do? You need to upgrade yourself – your skills and knowledge.
When you play games, the character will level up as you fight enemies and gain experience. When you are at level 3 and the enemy is at level 6, it will be a tough fight for your character. But after you get to level 10, a level 6 enemy is nothing.
The same principle applies to life. If you don’t have the skills and knowledge, it is difficult to achieve the goals that are beyond your reach. But once you upgraded yourself, improve your knowledge, and increase your skills level, you become better. Your goals become something easier to achieve because you have improved.
A lot of people set goals that are too big and unrealistic to them because they lack the necessary skills and knowledge.
Therefore, work on improving yourself. Read more books related to your industry. Attend classes and keep on learning.
The better you become, the more you achieve. A big goal to you right now can become a small goal once you have upgraded yourself.
7. Focus on your purpose
One of the main reasons people fail to achieve their goals is because they lose their motivation and interest in their goals. And this is because they don’t back themselves with a strong purpose.
Think about why you want to achieve your goals, what are your reasons, what is your purpose?
Your purpose behind your goals is the fuel that drives you. Without a strong and empowering reason to support your goals, you will never feel motivated to act.
Think about it, why some people are so motivated and they are willing to get up at 5 AM to work on their goals and on the other hand, some people find it so difficult to get up early and they choose to procrastinate on their goals?
The answer lies in their purpose. If you have a strong and emotional purpose to achieve something, you will do whatever it takes to achieve it. You will never give yourself excuses and you will find ways to make it happen.
But if your purpose is not strong enough, you will procrastinate, make excuses, and choose to do the easy and comfortable rather than the difficult and uncomfortable.
Hence, focus on your purpose. Constantly remind yourself of why you want to achieve your goals.
8. Become a finisher and complete what you started
One of the biggest differences between successful people and unsuccessful people is that successful people is a finisher, they finish what they started. On the contrary, unsuccessful people is a good starter, but they don’t complete what they started.
How many goals have you set that you don’t see them to the finish? How many blogs have you registered but have abandoned? How many business ideas you have but are not doing anything about?
Successful people are a good finisher. They work on their plans and stick to their goals until they accomplish them.
If you want to achieve your goals and become successful, you must switch your mindset. You must change from starting to finishing.
Focus on finishing what you started. Don’t leave things hanging half-way. Having a fully completed project is more powerful than having 10 incomplete projects.
Think about it, you can’t do anything with half-baked projects, even if you have 20 of these projects, they mean nothing.
But if you have a fully completed project, you will see the positive impact it has on your life.
Take writing books as an example. If you have 10 unfinished books, you can’t publish them. But if you have 1 completed book, you can submit it for publication and that will completely change your life.
Thus, become a finisher and complete your goals.
9. Reward and celebrate your wins
It is unlikely that you are going to become successful overnight. And because producing significant results take time, you need to maintain your momentum. And to do so, you must reward and celebrate your wins.
I like how Shawn Achor, the best-selling author of The Happiness Advantage puts it:
“The fastest way to accomplish a goal is to look back at previous successes, and the most successful leaders and professional athletes I’ve observed make success lists. Instead of writing a list of all you need to do, keep a running list of all the things you have done today. Our brain accelerates toward goals when we perceive progress and when we see that the finish line is close. That’s why we speed up at 26.1 miles into a marathon.”
You want to keep your drive and motivation high by acknowledging your wins. Don’t just celebrate only when you have achieved your goals, celebrate all your wins, no matter how small they are.
Once you have written 100 words, give a pat on your back although you still have 900 words to go.
If your goal is to make 50 prospective calls today, feel good and give yourself a big fist pump once you have made every call.
The key is to celebrate and make yourself feel good. When you feel good, you raise your motivation and you keep your momentum going.
And make sure you reward yourself accordingly. If you have no idea how to reward yourself for your hard work, read my article below:
Read: How to Reward Yourself for Your Hard Work and Effort
10. Challenge yourself and be willing to do what’s difficult
There is no way you can achieve your goals without challenging yourself and do what’s difficult.
If you continue to do what you have always done, you will get the same old results you have always gotten.
The only way to breakthrough is to do something difficult. Therefore, you must be willing to venture beyond your comfort zone and do what is difficult.
As long as you continue to do what you did, don’t expect a different result. It is only when you do something different, you will get a different result.
Successful people who achieved their goals and dreams are always willing to challenge themselves to do the difficult. They are willing to do the uncomfortable and look at problems as challenges.
Unsuccessful people look at problems as obstacles that stop them. They are not willing to challenge themselves to do the uncomfortable. And this is why they fail to create breakthroughs in their lives.
Ask yourself, are you willing to do the difficult? Are you willing to venture out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself to a higher level?
Every time when you face a difficult situation, don’t say “why me”, instead, say, “try me!”
Conclusion
Achieving your goals and dreams may not be something easy, but it doesn’t mean it is something impossible too.
As long as you are willing to work for it and follow the 10 advice above, reaching your goals and making your dreams a reality will be highly possible.
If you have no idea how to set empowering goals that will motivate you and not sure what to do to achieve them, apply Goal Setting Formula. Use the formula to help you gain the success you desire in life.