If you’re reading this right now, I have a question to ask, “How’s your progress in achieving your 2018 goals?”
I bet that you realized that it is already April and that means 3 months have already gone by. So have you accomplished much of your goals? Or are you still at the starting line, preparing to run?
Regardless of whether you are doing great in achieving your goals or you are procrastinating and have almost forgotten about your goals until you read this article, time flies.
Time waits for no one.
Three months have already gone. And I hope that you have made some decent changes and took a lot of actions and progressed toward your goals.
Right now, there are about 9 more months to go before 2018 ended. And I sincerely believe that nobody wants to repeat their 2017 this year.
People want to improve. They want to do better. They want to achieve more. And more importantly, they want to achieve their 2018 goals.
And this is absolutely possible. In fact, reaching your 2018 goals is absolutely possible IF you are willing to do something right now.
Make full use of the remaining months before more time slips away from your hand.
If you procrastinated over the last 3 months, it is now time for you to take some serious action to achieve what you truly want.
This is exactly why I write this article.
Not only that I want to share with you what you can do right now, but I also want to remind myself of my goals because I want to make 2018 my best year ever.
If you have been in a slump, have no motivation, fail to achieve your monthly goals, not getting ahead, wasted your first quarter, here are 10 steps to help.
1. Review: What Went Wrong?
The first thing you need to do is to find out what went wrong. You want to perform a review of what you have done over the last 3 months.
Identifying your problems allow you to find out the real cause and then provide yourself with the right solution.
So ask yourself what has gone wrong. Why are you not taking action? Why did you fail to achieve your quarter goals?
- Is it that your goals are too high that you sabotage yourself due to disbelieve?
- Is it that every time you want to take action and someone or something distracts you?
- Is it because you have no idea how to do it?
- Is it because you overestimated yourself or have too many things to do that paralyze you?
Knowing what went wrong is one of the most important feedback you can receive from your review.
This is why revision is important. When you know what went wrong, you can then apply the right solution to the problem.
2. Review: What Went Right?
The second step you can take is to identify what has gone right. This is also a review to discover what you did that get you the right results.
Well, you may be still far away from your goals, but somehow, I believe that you have taken some form of actions.
Therefore, you should be able to tell what actions lead to the most results. By now, into the fourth month, you should at least have some clues of what are the things you need to do in order to produce the results you want.
For example, I know that in order to grow my blog, I need to keep pumping out quality content that people want to read. And so, one of my most important daily activities is to write quality content.
Identifying what went right gives you a sense of confidence and at the same time, it tells you that by doing more of it or improving it, you can get more and better results.
Thus, for last 3 months, what have you done that got you results?
3. Review: What have you learned and how can you do better?
After going through the first 2 questions of answering “what went wrong” and “what went right”, this is the final review question you should ask yourself.
For the past 3 months, you know what went wrong, so what have you learned?
Perhaps, you discovered that you have overestimated yourself by giving yourself a long to-do list that you felt overwhelmed and then procrastinated.
Or maybe you found out that building an e-commerce website requires much more technical skills than you imagine.
So how can you do better in the future?
Now that you know what went right and the problems that are stopping you, how can you avoid the mistakes and perform better in the coming months?
Perhaps, you should start small by giving yourself only 3 to 5 high-impact tasks to focus on each day. Go small and grow from there.
Or maybe you should take an e-commerce course to learn directly from the gurus so that it saves you time and effort, plus it also shortcuts your learning curve.
Once you have gone through these 3 review questions, it is time to prepare for your exciting future. It is time to go into the offensive mode and go all out to make 2018 your best year ever.
I just want to let you know that learning directly from successful people is one of the fastest and safest ways to get to where you want to go. It shortcuts your learning curve and allows you to model after the proven method.
And this was exactly what I did many years ago. I studied, read books, and learned from my mentor, John Assaraf. You can do the same.
In fact, John has created a 3-part mini-course on the neuroscience of setting and achieving your most important goals. I always believe that achieving greatness is a science and not an art. And John proved I’m right in his video.
John Assaraf also explained why the old-school personal development goal setting technique can sabotage your success and how science and research can help you instead.
Click here to watch the video now.
4. Reimagine the Success You Want
After going through all the review, it is time to reconnect with what you want. Do you still remember the goals that you want to achieve in 2018?
If you don’t have a goal, set one right now. If you’ve got a goal but you only keep it in your head, take out a piece of paper and write it down. If you have written down your goals before, review them and reread them.
If you have no idea how to set goals, just follow the step-by-step strategy here.
Most people fail to achieve their goals because they forget about them. They thought that goal setting is a one-time process. After they have written down their goals, they never do anything at all. They don’t even review their goals.
Therefore, practice the principle of active goal setting. Review your goals daily. You can choose to practice visualization or writing your goals each day.
Whatever you do, make sure you do something to reconnect with your goals daily. Do something about it every single day.
You want to condition your goals and the success you desire into your subconscious mind.
5. Creating a Solid Plan
Once you have reconnected with your goals, what you need then is a solid plan. Do you know what you need to do to achieve your goals?
Some goals are straightforward. For example, if your goal is to lose weight, basically, there are only 2 fundamental tactics: exercise and mind your eating habits.
Hence, you have to create a schedule to exercise and come up with a plan to eat healthily.
Contrary, some goals are not so direct. If your goal is to earn $1,000 from your internet business, there are many ways how you can reach it. For instance, you can start a blog, you can sell physical items by creating an e-commerce website, or you can also sell your expertise online.
What you need here is clarity. The clearer you are with what you want, the easier it is for you to come up with a strategic plan.
When you are being vague or unclear, your strategy too, will be unclear.
And if you have no idea what to do to reach your goal, just study and learn from other successful people who have done so.
As an example, if you want to build an e-commerce website, but you have no idea how to do so, simply search on Google or YouTube to see how others are doing it. You will discover many options such as creating your platform with Shopify, and then you can list your products there. Or you can even do a drop-shipping too.
This is why I said that the clearer you are with what you want, the easier it will be for you to come up with a better plan.
6. Building Commitment and Accountability
Looking back on the past 3 months, if you are not making any progress to reach your goals, one of the main reasons is due to commitment and accountability.
“If you are interested, you will do what it convenient. If you are committed, you will do whatever it takes.”
See, most people fail to achieve what they want in life not so much because they don’t know how to do it, but rather, they are not committed to it.
When you are absolutely committed to something, you will do whatever it takes to achieve it. Within law and ethical means of course.
So what you need to do then is to create a commitment so that you will never put off your goals again.
There are many ways to do this. You can share your progress with someone who supports you. You can make a bet with your spouse. You just need to be creative.
Besides that, you must also create the accountability so that you will take action.
The best way to do so is to get an accountability partner. If you want to exercise in the gym, the best way to make sure that you don’t procrastinate is to invite a partner along.
I play badminton every week. And I have never missed a game unless I’m overseas. The best part about badminton is that it is a team game where you will need partners to play along. And because of this, we never miss any game.
The same principle can be applied to your goals. Reaching your goals alone can be boring. Why don’t do it with someone else? Enjoy the journey, the ups and the downs, and support each other?
7. Reignite Your Passion and Motivation
Enjoy the process. You must have the passion for what you do. Remember, if you’re not passionate, you will not do the work for long.
One reason people give up on their goals is that they don’t find the work interesting. They do it either for the money, fame or power.
I have seen a lot of people started a blog because they want to build passive income. Now, I’m not saying that this is wrong, but if making money is your main focus, what do you think will happen if you put in 3 months of solid work and effort but are not making any money at all?
This is when people give up. You should do it for the passion. Unless your passion is to make more money, else you must connect your passion with your goals and what you do.
This is the only way you can go further and go long-term.
Why do you think I’m able to write such a long article and post so frequently on this blog? The answer is simple, I like what I do.
I’m absolutely passionate about writing and sharing ideas to inspire others.
If I focus on making money and after putting in so much effort but are not seeing any return, I will have quit.
So my friend, stop working for the money. Instead, work for your passion.
It is your inner drive that will motivate you to do better and to do much more.
Read: 7 Clear Signs That You Have Discovered Your Passion in Life
8. Time to Take Massive Action
Are you going to let your time slip by? I believe that you don’t want to repeat your past year this year, right?
So take massive action. You must do something in order to achieve the results you want.
My friend, success will never fall to you from the sky. It is not like you wake up tomorrow and you have a million dollars in your bank.
Success is not by accident, it is by design. People “engineered” their success.
Regardless of who you are and where you come from, you can achieve the remarkable success you want as long as you are willing to work on it.
Start with your vision, set it as a goal, create a plan, and then work relentlessly toward your goal and vision.
What if you fail? Treat it as a feedback, learn, improve, and then do it again.
The key is to take action.
“Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.”
– Dale Carnegie
9. Maintaining Your Motivation through Habits
I know that sometimes taking action and doing the work is easier said than done. There will be days when you have no motivation at all and you just want to do nothing.
Well, this is perfectly normal. We are human beings and humans are easily affected by their emotions. And motivation is a feeling, which means it is an emotion too.
This is why motivation comes and goes. Sometimes you feel fired up and you take massive action. There are also times when you feel totally no motivation and you just want to lie on your couch.
What you can do then is to not overly rely on your motivation. You must build productive habits.
Turn your actions into habits. If you want to maintain your physical fitness, develop the habits to exercise and healthy eating.
If you want to build a successful blog, develop the habits to write every day and feel excited about it.
Aristotle said it well, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Here’s an amazing quote from John Maxwell:
“You’ll never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.”
The question is how are you going to develop the habits of taking action?
James Clear has written a great article on this, you may want to read it.
The key to developing a habit is to repeat the action every day without a miss. And to repeat the action in the same manner as much as possible.
Read: 31 Daily Good Habits: The List that Improves the Quality of Your Life
10. Looking Forward into the Future
Now that you know what you need to do, so start right now.
You don’t want to waste your time like how the previous 3 months have gone. If you are not being serious about your goals, you’ll never achieve them this year and 2018 will become another lousy year for you.
Don’t let that happen. We’re supposed to live our lives to our full potential. And the only way to do so is to do our best.
So live each day with the best you. Take action, make progress, and move forward towards the life you desire. Even if you take just one small step a day, as long as you make sure you are moving forward, you will eventually reach your destination.
I will conclude this post with a meaningful quote from Bruce Lee:
“If you love life, don’t waste time, for time is what life is made up of.”
My friend, don’t waste time. Live each day as your best day ever, and 2018 will definitely become your defining year.
If you like what you read, remember to share it with others to inspire them. And do let me know your thoughts about this article.
So what are you going to do to achieve your 2018 goals? Let me know in the comment section below.