Ten actions you can do to achieve your goals
Today, I’m going to share with you some ways to achieve your goals and increase your chance of success. Some of them I learned from my own experience, while some are from the successful people whom I admire and respect.
1. Set your goals effectively.
One of the most important things you should do to achieve your goals is to set them effectively. This includes writing down your goals, carving out time, knowing the reason behind them, and breaking down enormous tasks into smaller ones. If you want to see detailed steps on how to set your goals, check out this blog.
2. Focus on one goal at a time.
Although it might be tempting to try achieving a lot of goals in a year, it would never be feasible. We are all busy, and sometimes, we get caught up in problems at work and at home.
Choose the most important goal that you want to achieve. Pick the one that will have a significant impact on your life and put your time and effort into that specific goal.
3. Cultivate a growth mindset.
Growth mindset was a term introduced by Dr Carol Dweck. According to her, there are two kinds of mentality – a fixed mindset and a growth mindset.
In the first one, people believe that they have these innate traits and talents which are fixed and therefore, cannot be changed. While the latter is a kind of mindset where people believe that they can learn, grow and develop their traits and talents through experience and learning.
To achieve your goals, you should embrace change. To do that, you need to develop a growth mindset. Because getting stuck with a fixed one won’t be good.
4. Find an accountability partner.
What is an accountability partner?
An accountability partner is someone who will help you stay committed to your goals.
At work, when your boss asks you to do something, no matter how tired you are, how bad you are feeling or how much you hate your boss, you still do it.
Why? Because you are held accountable to the given task.
When you fail to accomplish the task at hand, someone will be disappointed or mad at you. You might even face some consequences or punishments. And as a human being, we hate disappointing someone and being punished.
Having an accountability partner is a great strategy to develop a sense of responsibility.
5. Find a mentor.
When you travel in a place you’re not familiar with, and you’re not speaking the language of the locals, a tour guide will be a great help.
This is the same as having a mentor. They will help you navigate your way to your destination (goal).
I can’t emphasize how important having a mentor is in achieving your goal. Even some of the successful people proudly admitted that they had mentors or coaches.
Honestly, this is a game-changer. Of course, you still need to figure some things out by yourself, but having a mentor saves you from getting lost in the process, committing too much error, and being overwhelmed by information.
6. Track your progress.
It’s easy to feel like you’re not progressing if you don’t track your goals.
Tracking your progress is not only for people who commit to losing weight. It’s also beneficial and essential to anyone who wants to achieve a career, financial, or personal goal.
Tracking your progress helps you determine if your system is working or not, and what things, activities or habits to keep and what to change.
7. Set an upper bound.
I’ve learned about this tip from a blog post by James Clear. He mentioned that the upper bound is like the ceiling or the limit of your growth. You need to set a limit to make your actions towards your goal sustainable.
Often, when we set our goals, we only focus on having a lower bound. To exercise for 30 minutes, to lose 10 pounds this year, to read five books this month.
While this is okay, some of us get into the thinking of “Hey since I’ve reached this target, why not go for more?” then we go for more and more until we hit the line of burnout.
An upper bound is necessary to avoid burnout.
8. Review your goals daily.
Our brain is powerful, that’s true, but it’s not perfect. We couldn’t trust it to remember everything that we want to remember. Especially as adults, we are always caught up on things like family, work, relationships, and errands. This often leads to forgetting our personal goal.
This is also very simple to do, write down your goal, everyday, on a piece of paper (make it big), then list down your to-do list below it. Make sure that your to-do list is in-line with your goal.
Another important tip is to write a reward that you will get after you accomplish the goal. Having a reward will keep you motivated.
9. Stop aiming for perfection.
Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
Maya Angelou
Perfection is often the reason why we stop going after our goal. When we realize that we are not as good as we wanted to be or our output is not as we expected, we give up.
But we only improve when we start taking actions. When we gain experience, we grow and become better. We always do. So instead of stressing out and aiming to make something perfect, commit to finishing it. Never let your self-doubt stop you from putting yourself out there.
10. Be patient and stay consistent.
It might take some time for you to reach your goal, but as long as you put in the time and effort, you will surely achieve it.
We usually give up on our goals because, sometimes, we can’t see any improvement. We feel like we are not growing, and we think that it’s a sign of failure.
But it’s not.
Always remember that nothing worth having comes easy.
Don’t let excuses and small bumps in the road stop you from going after your goals.
If you really want to achieve something, you should be focusing on taking actions, on finding ways how to make it work.
Not on counting the challenges you might face, your excuses, or your negative thoughts.
Your dreams need you to work for them. You will never know where your dreams will take you if you won’t try.
Apply these steps and take action now so you can achieve your goals.
From the steps above, what have you found most helpful? I would love to hear it! Please comment it below.
Good luck!