The 7 Secrets How to Make Goal Setting Work For You

Do you set goals and reach them? If you don’t, this will be the perfect article for you.

Read on to discover how to make goal setting work for you. I’m going to share with you the 7 secrets how you reach your goals effectively and easily.

We all know that goal setting is one of the most common topics that almost every success gurus talk about. Ironically, the majority of the people who set goals aren’t accomplishing their goals.

If you failed to achieve what you set out for, it is not because that you are not capable of achieving it.

Please understand that it is matter of your approach and how you manage your goals, not a matter of your talent or skill.

I believe that anyone can achieve outstanding success if they wanted to. Extraordinary people such as Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Michael Jordan, etc weren’t born with unique talents, but they do have extraordinary desire and vision for success.

And I’m going to share with you the 7 secrets that will greatly boost your ability to reach your goals faster, easier and more fun.

Let’s dive straight into the 7 secrets…

1. Program Your Goals into Your Subconscious

The first thing you need to do is to program your goals into your subconscious. Do you know why people write down their goals? And do you know that when you write down your goals, you have a higher chance of achieving them?

It is said that people with written goals have 50% higher chance of achieving them.

So if by just simply writing down your goals can help you to hit your targets more effectively, you should just do that.

Why do you want to write down your goals? Simple, you make your goals more real to you and in the same time, you program your goals into your subconscious.

Actions such as writing down your goals, read them every morning, or review them daily help you to plan the seed of reaching your goals into your mind.

And when your goals have become part of your subconscious, you will do things automatically without much effort.

Just like how you brush your teeth each morning, it is in the exact same way every day. How do you bath? Exactly the same way every time.

Therefore, you need to make your goals a part of your subconscious so that you will act on them automatically without putting in much thought.

This is why people want to write their goals, review them daily and read them aloud each morning. They want to turn their goals into part of their subconscious.

We want to program our goals into our subconscious because we are creatures of habits. Aristotle said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit.”

Thus, if you can cultivate the habits of successful people, you will act like they do and you will get the result like they did.

This is why you need to program your goals into your subconscious. Do you get it?

How to Program Your Goals into Your Subconscious

There are a few things you can do to make your goals a part of your subconscious. First, you definitely have to write down your goals.

Next, you can choose to read them out loud or choose to rewrite them every morning.

You can also write your goals into a card and keep it either in your pocket or in your wallet. So whenever you put your hand into the pocket, you will touch the card and reminded yourself of your goal.

Another thing you can do is to write down your goals on a piece of paper and stick or paste it on the fridge or on the wardrobe. You want to make it easy to remind yourself and program them into your mind.

Just be creative and have fun doing this. Jack Canfield, the author of Chicken Soup for the Soul, where the book sales exceed $110 million in US and Canada, do this crazy thing:

“So the technique I was using was to visualize every day having $100,000. I made a $100,000 bill by taking a hundred dollar bill and using a projection screen, projecting it up onto a flip chart, so it was larger, and then I traced it and added three zeros to it so it looked like $100,000.”

“It was large, about three feet by two feet, and I put it up on the ceiling above my bed. So every morning I’d wake up, I’d see the hundred thousand dollar bill, and I’d say my affirmation…”

“God is my unlimited supply. May large sums of money come to me quickly and easily under the grace of God, for the highest good of all concerned. I am easily earning, saving, and investing a $100,000 a year.”

“Then I would close my eyes and I would visualize living a $100,000 lifestyle. What would my house look like? What would my car look like? What charities would I be contributing to? And so forth.” Read more here.

Guess what, Jack did not achieved his target of $100,000, he hit a figure about $92,000. Did he disappoint? Not at all! He made ten times more income that year.

So just believe that it will come and put your goals into your mind. What do you have to lose anyway, right?

2. Track Your Progress

If you say that you want to lose weight, how do you know if you have lost the weight or gained?

Simple, just weight yourself and track your progress.

Sadly, most people never track their progress. All they do is to write down their goals once and then they will forget about what they set out for.

When you track your progress, you are also making reviewing your goals part of your habit.

You need to know where you stand right now in order for you to proceed further. Tracking your progress is one of the most important components of goal setting that most people never do, and they wonder why their goals don’t work.

Let me give you an example of how important it is to track your progress.

Have you ever watch any football match before? Just imagine that during World Cup times, you go to a café for a drink and you look at the TV and it is showing a live match between Brazil and Germany.

What is the first thing that you will look at? The TV brand? Of course not! The first thing you will look at is the score.

Why do you want to know the score (the progress)? It is simply because if a match is without a score, it is not a match at all.

Can you imagine playing a football match without knowing the score? And who scored the goals doesn’t matter at all? How will the players react and how will the audience feel?

What about basketball? They have a big scoreboard showing you the score of both teams right? What if both teams are playing without the scoreboard?

You can tell straight when you walk in the park where the kids play basketball with or without the score.

When they play without the score, you know that it is not a match and those kids are NOT going to take it seriously. They will just play around and you will see that the situation is not as tense and serious.

However, things changed if they go into the match and the score matter. Both teams will play seriously and you will clearly see it that both teams are playing to win.

There is a HUGE DIFFERENCE when the score involve and you know your progress.

Play To Win

Successful people play to win. While ordinary people play NOT TO lose.

If you don’t track your progress, you are like playing the game without knowing your score. And without a scoreboard to track your progress, how can you tell if you are winning?

This is why it is utmost important to track your progress. You need to understand where you are right now in order to craft a better plan to get to where you want to go.

All the businesses out there track their numbers don’t they? And world-class athletes try their best to break the record as well. What happen if there is no world record? There is no numbers for you to track?

I have no idea, but I do know that if you are serious about achieving your goals and making them a reality, you definitely need to know your progress and track your goals.

So create your own scoreboard today. Track your progress and update your scoreboard from time to time.

Want to learn more about keeping score for your goals? Read: Keeping Score: The #1 Reason People Fail To Achieve Their Goals

3. Work on the One Thing

Ask yourself right now; what is the one thing that if you do it, it will give you the most result?

And do that right away.

Most people are too busy doing things that don’t matter. They focus in doing things that give them the least effect on their goals.

According to Pareto’s 80/20 rule, there are 20% of your works that will give you 80% of the result. On the other hand, there are also 80% of your works that will give you only 20% of the result.

Thus, you need to identify the 20% of the work that will yield you 80% of your result.

In other words, do the important task that will give you the most result, be productive.

They called it the lead measure – the things that will give you the highest impact and yield you the most result.

So you want to act on the lead measure. And only you can identify your lead measure because only you know what you want and what can you do.

When you act on too many things all at once, usually it won’t work. And you will be spending too much time working on things that will give you minor return. Don’t major in the minor.

Do What Most People Don’t Feel Comfortable Doing

Here’s an interesting tip that can help you to identify the lead measure. You just need to find out and do what most people don’t feel comfortable doing.

Sales people hate to do cold calls due to rejection, but if you can overcome it and do it, you can achieve great result from there.

Most students hate to do revision, but if you do, it can give you a huge return on your grades.

Most people wanted to lose weight but they don’t want to go to the gym or to workout. They prefer to go for an easy way like taking weight loss pills.

Hence, if you want to get the most result from what you do, just identify the thing that people hate to do or don’t feel comfortable doing, and do it.

If you follow through this principle, you will have no problem getting the results you want in your life and achieve all your goals.

4. Keeping the Momentum

It is easy to get motivated in the beginning when you first started. Most people give up working on their goals after some time, not at the beginning stage.

After you have attended a motivational seminar, you feel hopeful and you can see the light. You feel motivated and wanted to take massive action.

It is a good start, unfortunately, the key to achieving outstanding success is not in the beginning, and it is in maintaining your momentum and keep moving forward.

Rome was not built in a day. You can’t lose all your weight and become slim in just 3 days and you definitely can’t create a million-dollar business overnight if you don’t have what it takes.

The key in achieving success is in the long run. People are successful because they work on things that will give them small successes.

And over time, those small successes will accumulate and become a huge success.

If you want to lose 10kg, I don’t think you can achieve it by just going to the gym once. The same idea applies in achieving your goals.

You have to maintain the momentum. Keep taking action every single day until you hit the tipping point.

Additional read: 7 Techniques How To Get Motivated To Do Anything

5. Learn the Shortcuts

Do you know that there are shortcuts to success?

When you set a goal to go from A to B, and you have no idea how to get there, so what should you do?

The fastest way to reach B from A is to ask those who have done it and follow exactly their route. And this is the shortcut that you need to take.

You can walk from A to get to B, but it may take you longer. However, if someone can borrow you a car, you can definitely get to B faster.

This is the kind of ‘shortcut’ I’m talking about.

If you want to make a million dollar, what should you do? Find out ways how to make that amount of money and do the necessary work.

Studying the ways and learning the strategies are the shortcuts to success.

Just like when you get to the gym to lose weight and you have totally no idea where to start, what would you do? Most probably you will start with the treadmill because it is the most common technique known to most people.

What if there is a personal trainer there who can help you? Do you think you can achieve better results faster and easier? Of course!

The same goes in investing. You have money and you don’t have any idea what stock to invest or which property to buy, what would you do?

Probably you will read a book and ask around for the best tip. This may get you the result you want but it is not the fastest way to get there.

What if you can network with seasoned investors who have earned a lot of money and you get to join and invest along with them? Do you think you can achieve your goal faster this way?

So study and learn consistently. Improve your strategies from time to time to get the result you want faster and more effectively.

There are many ways to reach your goals, some may be faster and some may be slower. You just need to find out which one works best for you and take action.

This is why you need to adopt the habit of reading books each day. No matter how busy you are, try to schedule a 30 minutes to read a book each day.

Like I have always said, if you can read a book a month, within 3 years, you will have read 36 books. Can you imagine if the 36 books are related to your business, how much potential can you grow your business?

6. Develop the Burning Desire

The key to achieving amazing success in life is to have a burning desire. If you don’t have the desire for what you want, you will never take much action.

If you don’t have the desire, you will never do things that are uncomfortable. If you don’t have the desire, you will never bother to improve your strategy. If you don’t have the desire, you will never achieve your goals.

Only those who are truly committed will continue till the end and get the result that they want.

The climb is difficult and challenging. You will face a lot of rejection, a lot of setback, a lot of tough times, a lot of adversity, and thus if you are not committed, you will never reach the top.

Yes the climb is difficult and hard, but the view is well worth it.

Build Your Desire through Passion

When you are passionate, you will automatically be committed with it. Some people are willing to wake up as early as 6am to go for golf, why?

It is because they are passionate with playing golf and they are able to wake up so early. They become committed as a result of being passionate.

Have you seen people playing computer games until late night? But if you ask them to study or do other stuff, they will tell you that they feel sleepy.

Your passion will fuel your motivation and your motivation will keep your desire burning.

It is just like what Steve Jobs said during an interview, he said that being successful is so difficult that normal people would have quit if it is not for the passion.

This is why passion is important because it drives you into taking action and makes you committed. When tough times come, you will quit if you don’t love what you do.

However because you love what you do, you will continue to do it even when times are challenging.

Therefore, create the burning desire through your passion. Passion can be developed just like love. You need to study and learn the subject more.

7. Improve Through Feedback

So what happen if you failed? There are 3 types of people how they deal with failure.

The first group will calls it quit when they fail.

The second group will work harder when they don’t get the result they want. They thought that it is because they don’t spend enough time and put in enough effort.

Often, it is not going to work out even after they poured in more effort and take more action. They are doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting to get different result.

The third group of people is where you want to be in. This third group of people treats failure as feedback.

They study why they fail to get the results they want and they change their approach. They turn failure into feedback and improve on their strategies.

This is how successful people make it. Michael Jordan had many failures before, but he didn’t quit, instead, he learned from his mistakes and improved his skills from there.

Steve Jobs did miserably with his Next computer after getting fired from Apple. But he did not quit either. Instead, he brought what he built and learned from Next into Apple years later and grew Apple into one of the most successful companies in the world today.

You definitely have to learn from your failures. And don’t look at failures as failure, treat them as feedback telling you what went wrong and where you need to improve.

This is how you can achieve outstanding success in your life, guaranteed.

Like what Thomas Edison said, he never failed once, but successful found out 9999 ways that don’t work.

The Conclusion

You see, reaching your goals has nothing much to do with your skill. It has more to do with your self-discipline and your desire to achieve the things that you set out for.

Walt Disney was once fired and told that he just doesn’t has the talent and creativity. But he pressed on and built one of the most famous theme parks in the world.

Anyone can achieve whatever they want in their lives, as long as they have the commitment to never give up, the will to learn from failures and mistakes, and to maintain the momentum to keep taking action each day.

If you want to be a millionaire or a billionaire, yes you can. If you want to climb Mount Everest, the highest ground on Earth, yes you can. If you want to drive Ferrari and race camels in Egypt, yes you can.

Follow through these 7 secrets I shared above and I strongly believe that you will greatly enhance your probability to achieve what you truly want in your life.

Let me know what you think about these strategies…