With goal setting, individuals are always looking for new ways to break new ground and accomplish things they have never been able to in the past. I get it. Goal setting is one thing but achieving goals is an entirely different story. It can be tough to find success, let alone use methods that can bring us one step closer to success and the finish line. That’s why it’s important to always to use best practices and avoid pitfalls whenever possible.
Today, my goal is to break down 19 of the best methods you can use to achieve goals that much faster and ultimately have a better chance of reaching success in general. Success will always be a hard thing to capture. With some proper planning, solid discipline and a foundation of knowledge, you should have a good jump start out of the gates toward getting things done right this time and finally having a breakthrough.
Let’s dive into it. Here is my 19 best methods and tips towards achieving goals. It’s time to end the failures and goals that never come into fruition.
Take Things Slow and Stretch Your Goals
Alright, so you always hear us discuss how you must take massive action to achieve goals. This is 100% true and, in many ways, is one of the most important things you can do achieve success. However, staying methodical and surgical with your goals is also very important.
A common mistake that individuals make is setting these monster goals from the get-go. We talk about this in our long-term goals vs. short term goals post that you can see here. Setting goals that are too much to bite off at a time can cause anxiety, you to become overwhelmed and ultimately, your goals will suffer the most because of this mindset and goal setting technique.
Goals such as running a marathon or becoming your own boss are too big early in the process. You need to slowly work toward these kinds of goals to ensure that you aren’t putting too much on your plate at one time.
A better alternative is to merely set a goal to go to the gym every day or run every day. If you are trying to be your own boss, start planning the execution and putting the pieces together slowly until you can see where it may lead. To make it simple to understand. Break up your goals, take massive action but spread it out some and take it slow.
The Power of Writing Down Goals
This is huge, and we discuss it often. Visually seeing your goals and physically writing your goals down is a huge power boost in the correct direction. It lets the goals and dreams come to life and make’s you envision the potential of what if you really can pull off this goal or what if you can pull off a miracle.
You can even take this one step further. Don’t just write down your goals but keep visuals of the some of the reasons why you want to accomplish the goals. Are you trying to save for a new house? Get some pictures on a nice whiteboard of the home you want to buy.
Are you trying to retire and travel? Get some images of the destinations you want to visit or what your beach home retirement will look like.
The more you can bring goals and visions alive the more real they can become. Trust me, if you can picture it. You can make it happen. You just must stick with it and see it through the thick and thin. This all begins with writing down your goals daily or even on a morning and nightly basis. Get started with this easy adjustment and see just how well it can work for you.
You Have to Have Harsh Deadlines
Deadlines with goals are also critical. Without them, when are you expecting to be done with a goal or even know when you have accomplished a significant milestone? You need to set hard deadlines to get things done; otherwise you will continue to put off some of the most important steps and pieces of goal setting.
You can’t really see if a dream to come into fruition if you aren’t ever doing anything active towards it. The typically saying of “I’ll get to it tomorrow” eventually de-rails the entire process and makes things tough to get back on track.
If your dates are realistic and achievable, this approach is fantastic. If you are running the marathon from the example we used previously, don’t set your first marathon to be in 30 days. Maybe set this milestone to be out like 6 months. This gives you some structure to your day and gives you something to aim for.
This starts getting you the mode where you know that you need to start training and acting. Especially if you have paid money to participate in the marathon. Usually, when a cash value is attached to something, people tend to follow through much more often in fear that they have wasted their money.
Nobody likes doing this.
You Need to Be a Dreamer but Remain Realistic
Everyone wants to make a million dollars or travel the world starting tomorrow, but unfortunately, we have mouths to feed and obligations that must come first. Setting your goals to do these things in the blink of an eye is not only completely unrealistic, but it’s also financially damaging if you are not prepared.
Keeping realistic goals but still reaching for the stars is the best approach. Look I’m not saying that you can’t make a million dollars. You absolutely can, but you need to have a realistic and achievable plan to making this happen. If you just wing it or try to get ahead of yourself, your goals will likely come crashing down on your quickly.
Be a dreamer but make sure to keep your goals and dreams realistic and achievable.
You Have to Commit
You must commit on many levels. You need to commit to your goals, commit to yourself and commit to the others in your life who are essential and counting on you to act and to see results. All three forms of commitment at this level can do nothing but benefit you moving forward into the process.
Goals take a long time to complete. Losing weight in the gym could take hours of blood, sweat, and tears. Starting a blog could take years before you ever see any results or before you ever make a penny from it. Also, starting any business or goal that takes much effort will be you, and only you are putting in that effort.
In most circumstances, you’re the only one going through the pain and struggle to make something happen. It all comes down to you and you only. Can you handle that? Sometimes it’s important to make yourself think in this style or to realize if this is going to work for you.
If you are depending from a massive crowd of support or people to flock around you, it probably won’t happen, so you do need to adjust your goals, dreams, and vision to fall in line with the way the world really works.
If you prepare yourself, you can most likely live up to the challenge and start making things happen today.
You Have to Have A Reason Why
I don’t think I have a blog post that doesn’t discuss how important than this. It’s a massive driving force for everything we do. Usually, money isn’t the best reason to set these goals either. It needs to be taken a level deeper, and you need to really analyze your inner self and find that inner drive to get things going.
Sometimes this can be our family or kids and sometimes it can be because we have always had a burning desire to get something done in life or fulfill a lifelong dream. Whatever the reason maybe it isn’t necessarily the critical factor to consider. Just having the reason why behind your actions and goals is the most essential part of this equation. Don’t forget this step to get a leg up on accomplishing goals.
Not Tracking = Failing Quickly
In all honesty. Not tracking your progress makes setting goals a complete waste of time if you ask me. I suppose you can mentally store as much of the information as possible, but when it boils down to it, it’s essential to track progress and see how far you have come.
Simple things can be completely good enough. Using notepads or even a folded piece of paper in your wallet and purse with small milestones and what’s been taking place can be all you need to help start tracking progress. Staying organized is also essential towards making your dreams come true and turning them into a reality.
How you choose to track your goals is entirely up to you. I prefer daily tracking because it helps me stay focused for the upcoming day, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the way you have to adopt. Some people track goals weekly, monthly or even quarterly depending on what kind of goal it is that you are tracking.
You can even use apps on your mobile device nowadays to make this process that much easier. I’m personally a pen to paper type guy but in general, if you find some clever or unique of the way of measuring the progress you are off on the right track and putting yourself in a much better position to succeed.
Never Allow Anyone Else to Set Goals for You
This is one of the easiest pits falls to get yourself into. First. Let’s be clear. I don’t think you shouldn’t hit milestones your employers set for you. That’s not the way this suggestion is geared. What it means is that you need to be in the driver’s seat and completing goals for nobody other than yourself.
Don’t let your parents decide if you are going to be college baseball star or the next person to create a genius app for mobile devices. These goals rarely work out and cause unneeded pressure on us to succeed. The problem is that the desire you have in these situations and under these circumstances is short lived.
When someone is setting goals for you, it can become tough to understand why you are even chasing the dream, and the small failures along the way will seem like good stopping points to just throw in the towel and call it a day.
Make up your mind about what you are after and stick to it. Don’t let others control your destiny.
Give Yourself Celebrations
Sometimes we just need to take a step back and pat ourselves on the back for something accomplished or a job well done. Don’t get carried away with this but it is essential, nonetheless. Don’t do this by sharing your goals either. This is for you and your mental wellbeing. Once you have a great day or something goes your way, take the time to celebrate it.
You don’t have to host a rave every time something good happens but treating yourself to a moment of reflection and being excited over the accomplishment is 100% okay to do and you should. You have earned it. Creating these small celebrations can really help you to stay focused and chase that feeling again and again. That’s the entire point.
It’s like giving a dog a treat. Create an environment where you are enticing yourself to push harder so you can have that euphoric feeling again and start reaping the rewards from your hard work.
Just don’t go overboard with this and you will be just fine.
Never Give Up on Your Goals
This one is self-explanatory. Don’t give up. We talk about this a lot with goal setting, but surprisingly this recommendation never tends to stick with anyone. Giving up is the most common result of goal setting, and many more individuals give up compared to reaching their goals than people believe. It’s a staggering percentage. Don’t let this be you.
Prepare yourself mentally in the beginning. Bad days are coming. A bunch of them and there is no good way to avoid them. You will fail, and you will fail often, but ultimately failure and disappointment only begin when you entirely give up and throw in the towel.
Roll with the punches and keep after it. Eventually, something good will happen.
Most give up right before a breakthrough would have taken place. I love this quote and statistic and believe it to be true. Just hang in a little bit longer and keep pushing.
Something is bound to happen in your favor at one point or another. Keep grinding.
Learn to Love Failure
This is my personal favorite on the list but trust me when I say that learning to love failure does take time. At first, failure will suck. Big time. Eventually, you get used to it and understand it’s just all part of the game.
There is entirely no point in trying to out-run failure because it will continue to happen no matter what you do. What you can do however is begin battling back and seeking failure. Fail faster so you can make the adjustments and learn to pivot your game plan so you can avoid the first failures the second time around.
This is some of the best advice that I believe can be given to someone struggling with achieving goals or being terrified of failing. Just deal with it and learn to accept them in bunches and you will already be several steps ahead of your competition.
Just get it the failures done fast and out of the way. They take time and so does success so stop wasting all of it sitting around.
Get after it.
Set Goals Based on Talents and Skills
Learn what you are capable of and what you are not capable of. Stop dwelling on your weaknesses and start focusing on your strengths. Hell, I’d double down on strengths if it was me. Many people take too much time worrying about what they can’t do instead of focusing all effort at things that they can do.
This is a wrong approach. You should be flipping that form of thinking. We should all start using our God given talents and abilities to create our dreams and bring them to reality instead of chasing after many things we are not good at or that many would even consider a weakness.
Double down on your strengths and don’t look back.
That’s some of the best advice I could give a new goal setter out there today trying to get things started on the right foot. Know what your limits are, use your abilities and stop dwelling on the little things.
Once you implement this practice, I’d love to hear how things are going for you.
Learn to Outsource the Meaningless Task
Once things are going well, it’s time for you to step up the game and learn to keep the focus on the most critical task. If things are going in the right direction and you want them to continue steaming in the right direction you need to be setting new goals, having new visions and dreams for the future of whatever it is that your chasing.
Often outsourcing is related to business style goals, but I think you get the point. Keep trying to reach new levels and allow the others to do the smaller trivial work for you so can continue to grow at faster speeds.
Change Your Mindset
Everything with goal settings starts with your mindset. You must learn to change your mindset and begin believing. If you can see it and feel it, you can make it happen. That’s all there is to it. Many of the most successful people in the world have been using these same types of techniques for a very long time, and it’s always proven to work.
First. Believe it. From there, continue to visualize and see it the process, and the results and more things will start becoming true for you than you may think. Give it a try.
Hold Yourself Accountable
You are the most significant reason while goals will either fail or why they may succeed. That’s all there is to it, and you need to own up to this and take that responsibility on with a full ahead of steam. If you are not doing what needs to be done. You need to begin doing these things.
If you know, you can do better than what you’re doing. Start proving it and making something happen. You owe it to yourself and everyone else that supports or believes in you, but nobody needs to be held accountable for your actions and results except for you. Always keep this in mind.
Pretend Like Your Life Depends on It
It’s funny how this works. When we absolutely need something, the task and process almost seem more straightforward. We just start doing the things that need to be done.
When things become a necessity, we push for them that much harder. This could be financial goals or many other subsets of goals. The important thing to take away is that when we have this mindset, good things can happen that much faster.
Push Through the Dirt, You’ll Need a Big Shovel
Dirt is going to be flying at you at rapid speeds. Unforeseen circumstances and events. Schedules being knocked out of place. Angry customers or potentially even friends and family telling you that you are never going to accomplish what you are trying to do.
Get used to it because it’s never going to stop. Just get yourself a big shovel(mentally), and you will be okay. That’s really all there is to it.
Once you realize that you can push through the negativity once or twice you will start becoming mentally tough which is when things can really get fun. Reach that point of no return and keep digging out of the holes. Eventually, you will reach the mountain top.
Improve Your Body and Mind
Your body is equally important in my opinion as your mind when it comes to achieving goals. I’m not talking about fitness goals either. I’m talking about just staying physically active with high levels of energy. Chasing goals and success is demanding on our minds and body. We can get tired from time to time.
This is completely normal, but you should actively look to fight it and improve if it’s an area that you are currently struggling with.
If you don’t have the energy to keep up, it’s going to be very difficult to outpace the competition or even have the mental attitude of a winner.
Work on improving yourself physically to boost your energy levels so you can spend more time hunting and executing your goals instead of sleeping and eating. It’s a key component to maintaining the fight that’s needed to accomplish anything worthwhile.
Develop A Work Ethic
Achieving goals takes work. A lot of it. Poor work ethic can potentially drag you down faster than anything else that be standing in your way. You need to get the mindset that your dreams and aspirations come first that way you can get the necessary task of the day completed.
Work ethic can be learned over time, but it starts with that reason why we mentioned previously in the post. Without really needing or wanting what you are chasing, you will find reasons to put off task and have poor work ethic qualities. However, when you find that reason why and keep pushing and using a Rockstar like work ethic, things can change for you quickly.
Use of one of our tips on this page and track your results and where your time is going every day. Are you working for enough hours per day or are you just pretending that you are? Sometimes this is easy to lose sight of so learning to track and write these things down can make a big difference.
Hard work will eventually WORK. That’s all there is to it folks.
Putting It All Together, It Will Never Be Easy but It’s Always Possible
Listen, accomplishing goals will never be easy, and it was never designed to be. That’s just how it goes. Sometimes we falter, and sometimes we stay down in the mud for longer than we probably should. None of this really matters at the end of the day.
What matters the most is that you are prepared and ready for the challenge that’s ahead of you. With proper planning, a solid mindset and a will to achieve and be successful more is possible that you may even believe.
You just need to get started. What’s your experience and best methods you use to set goals and what are you going to do become even better or more accomplished this time around? Be sure to leave a comment below.