Goals – every one of us has them – whether it might be a personal goal or a professional goal, we have them, and we work to achieve them. Well, we know setting up a goal is the easiest part. But the tricky thing is achieving your goals; reaching that position is a WHOLE different story.
You should have goals, no matter who you are and where you are from, and what you do for your living. Your goals and their success will define your future. Your goals might be grand plans that include extreme riches, or they may be as simple as losing some weight or getting a promotion in your work, improving your skills, etc.
There is no rule book that says you should set only a particular goal, but it is essential to set your goals wisely which are achievable. Goal setting is more important than achieving your goal since it is a sense of direction.
So, let’s discuss the importance of goal setting and tips to achieve goals for yourself!
What is the goal?
To understand our guide you need to define your goals and know why you want to achieve them, and how goals are different from dreams and objectives. A goal should be your aim for a better and long-term future. It is the main tree, the main focus. Objectives are the branches of the tree – the short-term goals to achieve the bigger one. They are the stepping stones to reach your final goal.
For instance, let’s think you are a software employee and you decided to learn a new course to get the promotion. Then your ultimate goal is to learn the course end to end practically. The daily tasks, tests, practice, learning aims, and everything you do to accomplish this goal are called objectives of the goal.
Expectations and dreams are not your goals. Achieving your goal someday is your dream. If you think you can achieve your goal, that is your expectation. Nevertheless, if you can fulfil your dreams & expectations practically, that is what you call a goal. To achieve your GOAL without any intermediate distractions, you should need a guide to guide yourself. Here are some simple guiding tips to focus on and achieve your goals.
Write down your goals & try not to multitask
It’s a wise choice to take a step back when things are not your way to achieve your ultimate goal instead of focussing on too many things simultaneously. To focus and achieve the goals, the primary to-do list has to be written so that you have a complete commitment to your goals.
You may get distracted when you are doing other things; your focus shifts away from your goal. Write down your goals where they are visible to you always, remind yourself so that you can refocus even if you get distracted. Set a single potential goal instead of setting multiple goals and doing multitasking.
Sometimes while working for fulfilling your goals, at some point, it becomes very hard to focus on your goal, and it takes lots of energy to motivate yourself and to push through. But never give up!
Use technology at its best
Technology became very handy and made many tasks easier in these modern days. If you can use technology at its best, you can make the path of your goals simple. For example, you want to learn a new language. In previous days people used to go for tuitions, buy language books, need to spend a lot of money, etc. But now you can learn any language you want with a few clicks on your mobile or laptop. The only investment is your dedication and willingness to learn.
Whatever your goal might be, you can take the help of technology. You find a lot of stuff on the internet, which aids your goal. You can set up a schedule of how much time you have to work on the project and set up timely reminders, what not; technology plays a vital role in the improvement of your goals.
Small start
Don’t go big on the first attempt. Most of the time, you may fail and get demotivated. The best example of this is workouts(exercise); on the first day of your training, if you start doing vigorously, you get stressed, tired and the very next day, you won’t feel motivated to do the workouts. Your mindsets develop a feeling that you can’t do it. The best solution for this is small starts; start doing 5 -10 minutes per day initially; after a few days, you feel it easy, and you will increase the dose by yourself. Eventually, you will reach your goal.
Find ways to sustain motivation when you are struggling
The second half of the way to reach your goal is very crucial, and many of you don’t feel the same excitement as in the beginning, in the middle. Find ways to self-motivation and stay focused. Never forget your passion, the reason why you started a goal. You may have a troublesome path but never give up your goal halfway.
To accomplish a goal, you face many hurdles in your way, which sometimes make you very, very disheartened, take a few thoughts and start motivating yourself to work for your goal. Try making like-minded people as friends so that they can help you and encourage you. Discuss your goals with them to get new inspiring ideas. Replace your negative thoughts with motivating positive thoughts like
“I AM READY TO DO IT”
“I CAN DO IT”
“I WANT TO DO IT”
“I WILL DO IT”
Think about the successful future once you accomplish your goals, the appreciation of your colleagues, friends, and last but not least, your family members.
Make a plan and set deadlines.
Deadlines might be fearsome tools to reach your targets. Everyone knows deadlines can be painful – but they are not strange to us. We are familiar with it in school; we have deadlines for assignments, in college, we have deadlines for projects, and even in your job, you have deadlines for your work.
A smart deadline will make you do things faster, forces you to think differently to achieve your goals before time. Unless you are an extremely talented super-human who has a sense of self-accountability, you need to set a deadline to work hard; otherwise, nothing will ever happen.
Deadlines push you to allot the required time and give you a reason to improve your skills to work for your goals. The most common mistake everyone makes while setting deadlines is underestimating how much time the task takes to complete. This is what psychologists call as planning fallacy: miscalculating how long you need to achieve your goal and becoming ambitious with the scope.
So, be honest with yourself when you set up a deadline for your lifetime project.
“Successful people maintain a positive focus in life no matter what’s going on around them. They always stay focused on their successes rather than their failures, and in the next action steps, they take themselves to get closer to the fulfilment of their goals rather than all other distractions that life presents to them.” — Jack Canfield.