5 Steps to Achieving Your Goals That Have Eluded You in the Past
Whether you want to quit smoking, loose weight, or save enough money for that fabulous vacation, you need to set a goal and try to achieve it one step at a time. It is not always easy. For myriad reasons, we fall off the wagon and never bother to get on board.
A commitment to achieving your goal is the key to success. But knowing how to reinforce your commitment from time to time so that you don’t go astray is also important. Reinforcing commitments regularly reminds us to catch the next train when we miss the one we are on board. The techniques described in this article will help you in reinforcing your commitments to achieving your goals.
1. Set your goals in measurable terms and take small steps. Write your goals as precisely as possible. Instead of saying “I will loose weight”, write down “I will loose 30 lbs in the next three months”. Also, break it down into small steps. For example, “I will loose 10 lbs a month for three months.”
By setting your goals in measurable terms, you will have a solid idea of what successful completion of your goal means. By breaking down into small steps, you will be able to measure your success regularly and change your course if you are not meeting your intermediate goals.
2. Create a tag line for your goal. Marketers use tag lines to catch people’s attention to their offerings. Remember the famous Coca Cola tagline - always coca cola? Tag lines are short keywords and phrases that are easy to remember. Create a tagline for your goal.
For example, if you want to save for a vacation and you need to reduce your vending machine spending, you can create a tagline like, vending machine vacation. Print out a number of cards with your tagline and put them in places where your can see your tagline all the time.
The phrase in a tag line itself is not that important. What is important is the emotional attachment to the tagline. Speak out your tagline whenever you are alone, e.g. during driving, while taking a shower, etc.
3. Always day dream the success of completing your goal. As bad as it sounds, it is a very powerful tool. Once you get immersed in your day dreams, start developing emotional feelings about it. Make plans for all the things you are going to do once you have achieved your goal.
For example, plan for what you are going to do in your vacation, look around for dresses that you want to buy once you have lost those pounds, or open a new saving account where you want to put the extra money once you start reducing the number of cigarettes you smoke.
4. Start a blog. Personal blog is an excellent way to record your goals, intermediate successes and failures. Google offers a free blog platform called blogger. Create an account for the blogger service and start recording your goals, why you want to pursue it, what is holding you back and your feelings when you achieve success.
Start reading a few self improvement blogs, post comments on those blogs, and share links to those blogs in your own posts. You will get lots of good ideas and insights from others’ blogs and receive tips and encouragements from readers’ feedbacks in your own blog. Your blog will motivate others to take actions. You can also earn money from Google’s AdSense program.
5. Create a facebook group and invite others to join you in setting and achieving goals together. This is a new type of social support group using social media. You will learn from each others and share information to keep everybody on track. Publish your blog posts and other interesting and informative posts from other blogs in your facebook group.
To achieve your goal, you have to take small bites one at a time and measure your success regularly. You need to get engaged and develop emotional attachment to your goals. Online tools like blogs and facebook groups help you develop passions and share them with others.