How to Set Goals and Ensure that you Achieve Them

The first step in setting goals that are achievable is to know what you really desire and that means knowing your mission.

Take some time to think about what you really want to become - what role you want to play in people's lives, what tasks you want to achieve in your life, what you dream of becoming.

Write down a picture of your ideal life and include all possible aspects. The more vividly you can picture this life, the more likely you will be to achieve it.

Once you have your picture it will probably come to anything from a few paragraphs to a few pages. In order to make this really useful you should also create a condensed version that sums up everything you have written in a short, one-sentence statement.

By keeping your overall vision (the big picture) as well as your condensed mission statement in mind all the time you will know where you are aiming for and so be better equipped to achieve what you want to achieve.

The key to achieving your goals is to set SMART goals. SMART goals are:

Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Time-limited

You need to know exactly what you want to achieve, when you want to achieve it by and how you are going to know that you have achieved it. They also need to be realistic and attainable and not something you are not capable of achieving within your time limit.

An important part of achieving your goals is to be able to see clearly in your mind the achievement of your goal. If you have a goal to lose weight then you need to picture yourself slim; if you want to make more money, you must picture yourself wealthy.

Take time each day, or even a couple of times a day, to focus on the life you want to achieve. See yourself living it and try to include as many other senses in your picture as you can - think about the smells you would experience, the food you would taste, etc.

As you take this time each day to picture yourself having achieved your goals you will feel more motivated to work towards them.

The problem with many of our long term goals is that they seem too big for us to ever reach and so we never make a start. The key to achieving your goals is therefore to set smaller goals that are easily accomplishable.

Start your goal setting by setting those large, long-term goals; but then break these down into smaller goals that can be accomplished in a month or a week. Depending on your self-discipline and belief in your goals it may even be necessary to break these down into daily goals.

When you have set small goals that you feel you can accomplish you will find it easier to start working on these goals and moving towards the larger goals. As you accomplish one small goal, you will set the next small goal, taking mini-steps towards the larger goal.

This is also the principle of "Eating your elephant". In order to eat your elephant, you need to eat it bite by bite. In order to reach large goals you need to reach them step by step.

Take a look at the large goals you have set and decide what steps you need to take to get there today and then start working on them.

The Goal Master is great for setting your goals and then tracking how you achieve them. It has a number of different features to help you towards accomplishing your goals and is immediately downloadable. You can order it through Amazon here

One of the biggest hindrances to achieving our goals is often procrastination. In the section above on setting smaller goals we found one way that you can help to overcome procrastination with larger goals, but what do you do to overcome procrastination on a daily basis and so achieve more each day?

One way you may find helpful in overcoming procrastination is to reward yourself for making a start. Tell yourself that if you can complete a certain portion of the task, or if you can work on it for so many minutes, then you will reward yourself with something that you really want to do. Often you will find that just making a start is the hardest part and that once you get started you will actually be able to a lot more than you originally set out to do.

Take time to think about what the accomplishment of that task will mean for you. For example, if you are putting off having a good house cleaning session then picture yourself in a beautifully organized and clean home and how that will make you feel. If you are putting off starting that diet then picture yourself slim and beautiful. By focusing on the joy of accomplishing the task it will often motivate you to make that start.

Often the hardest part is getting started so think about what it will be like to finish and then reward yourself for doing even a small part of the task.

The Secret and The Science of Getting Rich are becoming very popular today but they do not only need to be limited to accumulating wealth. The principles behind the movie and book are ancient and can be used to attract virtually anything you want.

The idea here is to focus on the positive, focus on what you want and don't fear. Be grateful for what you have and then act.

The idea is that by applying this you will find more motivation to do the actions that are necessary to achieving your goals.

You can learn more about The Secret and The Science of Getting Rich in some of the YouTube videos below.

Although we don't want to focus too much on the negative it is important to realize those things that are holding us back so that we can change them.

Do you fear that you will not be able to accomplish these goals?
Are they not really what you want?
Are you doing this for somebody else and not because it is what you really want?
Is anything else holding you back from its fulfillment?

Analyze your goals and specifically those that you feel you are not accomplishing and figure out why. Then take steps today to change that - whether it is negative thought patterns or whether, perhaps, you need to change the goal post to line up with your own personal beliefs and desires. Do not set goals simply to please someone else.