How to achieve goals

In order to achieve your goals, you need to be able to set effective goals.

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A SMART Goal will have actions in the "A" part - and this is how you achieve this goal. Depending on your goal, these Action Items may be detailed enough for you to work through your goal.

Not sure? Well, ask yourself the question: "If these Action Items were my only set of instructions to achieve this goal, would I be able to achieve it?". If your answer is "YES", well great!

If your answer is "No", take the time now to fully develop your Action Plan by expanding on these Action Items so that you have a truly actionable plan to achieve your goals by documenting the what, why, where, who, when and how (the 5WH) for your action items.

The secret to Achieving Goals - take action!

And the key to getting action on your goals is to integrate the goal's action plan into your day-to-day routine and tasks, and that's where it's important to have 'Planners' and 'Schedules'.

It's all about getting yourself organised!

'Planners' are specifically for listing the action items or steps for your goals, and 'schedules' are used to see how the action plan should pan out over the program and to identify any conflicts in resourcing.

'Schedules' will give you a visual representation of effort. For example, if you prepare a yearly schedule, and it shows lots of activity in the first 3 months but not much after that, you either have a short term goal only with lots of mini-tasks or you've crammed too much into the early stages of your Action Plan - be realistic about how much you can take on at any one time.

'Planners' are used to incorporate your goal setting actions and day-to-day activities into the one memory-jogging list, and are the cornerstone of how to achieve goals.

Goal setting is a dynamic process. Over the long term, your vision will change - goals you had when you were a kid were different to those as a teenager because your needs change, and so does your situation in life.

So, it is good practice to go through the whole goal setting process (yes, go through the whole thing again) every year or 2 and at least every 5 years, or if your life takes a sudden change in direction - for example, starting a family - to ensure you are always chasing the right 'Big-Picture'.

You can monitor the current 'truth' in your goal-setting journey by periodically reviewing your goals - the important thing to ask yourself in this case is "does this still apply to me or have my needs changed?".

By doing this you will pick up any early signs that your life is wanting to take a different journey to the one you've planned, and this is perfectly normal and in fact expected as your life progresses. The key thing is not to see a change in plans as a failure, it's just a refocusing exercise.

Even short term goals need to be flexible enough to accommodate things that are out of your control (for example, other priorities on your time), or even things that are in your control but you just underestimated during your goal setting exercise (for example, underestimating how long it takes to quit a habit).

Don't worry if your goals don't go exactly according to your action plan, as long as you're making progress in the right direction and make sure you update your action plan to suit so that it is still meaningful to you for achieving your goal. Remember the SMART components of your goal always need to apply.

First of all, congratulate yourself on a job well done. It doesn't matter how big or small your goal was, completion of a goal represents a step in the right direction towards your life success!

Reward yourself for your efforts with an appropriate treat [not a huge slice of chocolate cake if your goal was to lose weight!] - it sometimes helps to set this reward when setting the initial goal to help with motivation along the way, of course completion of the reward gives you a real buzz which is often a reward in itself!

But don't stop here - set a new goal. Perhaps this was just a mini goal you've achieved - start the next mini-goal towards your milestone. Or have you achieved a milestone? In which case, go back through your list of goals and develop the next goal to start on. Does your available effort and resources allow you to work on another couple of goals?

Goal setting is a life-long process - your goals will change along the way, but you should always have some. As you become more experienced in the goal setting process, you will feel a lot more confident in setting and working towards multiple and more complex goals. Build on your experiences both good and bad and be the best that you can be and SUCCEED!