People can often have a love-hate relationship with goals. They are an excellent tool for motivation but can be frustrating when they are not attained. We are here to give you some tips on what you can do to help accomplish your goals.
So, what is it that you want to accomplish this year? What do you want to tick off your bucket list?
A great place to start is to think about your goals. This could be a personal goal, a work goal or something you want to achieve in your life. However, just having a goal in your head may not be effective enough to accomplish it. So, to help with this, we recommend you write down your goals to record them.
Make sure it is not just on a piece of paper that you put aside and forget about! Instead, write your goals in places that you regularly look at. For example, you may have a journal or notebook that you write in each day or a pinboard in your room where you can pin your goals. Alternative ideas could be writing them on note cards that you keep in your car or bag or putting post-it notes with your goals on a mirror. Regularly looking at your goals will keep them a focus in your mind and will help you to stick to them as time goes on. Your goals will act like a compass in your life; they will help to carve the way you need to go.
After you have written your goals down, you also need to write down why you want to achieve them and how you think you will achieve them. What is your main motivation for achieving each goal? It may be financial, it may be educational, it may be a personal achievement – whatever it is, it’s good to understand the motivation behind your goals as this can help give you direction on how to achieve them. Do some research into the steps you could take to reach your goal. Maybe you could find someone who has already done it and learn from them.
When planning your goals, make sure you are creating small steps to increase your chance of success. If you try to do too much too quickly it increases the risk that you might fall off your goal path. This might make you feel disheartened and could stop you from continuing to accomplish your goal. Small, attainable steps will make your goals less overwhelming, and they will give you a sense of satisfaction as you complete each step. Finding out feasible steps can help give you the direction and motivation you need to achieve them. With each step completed, you are one step closer to your goal!
Another point to consider is having complete faith in yourself and your goals. You need to have faith because if you don’t, you may not achieve your goals. You may have written them down, but it means nothing if you kick out your belief of achieving this goal from your “belief” system. You need to have faith that you can reach any goal that you set. Your mindset plays an integral part in achieving your goals. Read our blog about intentions to find out how setting intentions can help to support your goals.
One of the things we always use in our workshops for goal setting is the Three Questions of Direction. This framework includes three questions to ask yourself to help give you direction when setting a goal.
These questions are:
So, think about a goal you want to achieve this year. Now go through the questions one-by-one and write down your answers. This will help you to identify your starting point), what target you are aiming for (i.e. your goal) and then how you think you will get there. To achieve a goal, you need to create a plan. A goal without a plan is just a dream! So, think about the steps you need to put in place or what you need to do to prepare yourself to make your dream a reality! Remember, these steps need to be small to make them more attainable.
After you achieve a desired goal, don’t forget to pat yourself on the back. Then, celebrate your achievements by giving yourself some sort of reward. This could be a physical reward like buying yourself a gift or taking yourself out for a meal. Or you could treat yourself by spending time doing something you love, like reading a book, going for a walk, doing something creative or watching a show guilt-free.
Once you achieve your first goal, this should give you the belief that you can accomplish any of your future goals. It should give you some sort of motivation to write more and more goals down.
Don’t worry, this can happen to anyone who sets goals. Not every goal can always be achieved, or they can take longer than you think to complete, so you assume they are unattainable. There will always be some goals that are harder to achieve than others. It is about your determination and motivation towards your goals that will impact whether you accomplish them or not. Reaching your goals requires effort.
The best thing you can do from this situation is to learn from it. If you fail once, try again. If you fail the second time, try again until you reach your desired goal. But don’t take the same action. Instead, learn what you did wrong the first time and think about what you can do differently when trying to achieve that goal again.
So, it’s time to get your pen and paper and write down your goals for the year. What do you want to accomplish?!
Discover how our Magic Steps to Goal Setting programme will give you a better chance of success. It’s time to create specific, well-defined goals and formulate a plan to achieve them. Let’s take those small steps towards that big goal – £10 SPECIAL LAUNCH OFFER!
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