How Do You Achieve Goals Faster? [The Cold Truth]

Achieving goals is one thing but learning to produce them in a timely fashion is an entirely different story.  Sometimes we set goals and drag them on for weeks, months or even years never really gaining any traction.  In the grand scheme of things this isn’t necessarily a bad thing but learning to pick the pace up can be extremely beneficial.

It can beneficial to your finances, health or relationships.  It all just depends on what your goals are and what you are ultimately trying to achieve. So, what do you do to achieve goals faster?  First and most importantly you become very clear about your desired outcomes and begin to put the plans in place. Let’s cover some of the methods and common questions that arise when covering goal setting.

How Can You Achieve Much More Difficult Goals?

Difficult Goal Setting Step #1

Achieving difficult goals can seem like a daunting task, but it’s doable if you lay the correct foundation and begin doing the little things right.  That leads us to significant point number 1.  Get the little things done correctly first.  Some say this can be broken down into easy task like beginning each day with a task completed. Even the smallest wins count for the big victory later.  Start your day with a task completed!

•    Make Your Bed

•    Don’t Snooze Your Alarm

•    Take 5 Minutes to Write Down Your Task for the Day

•    Keep Task Broken into Bite Size Achievable Goals

•    Take A Break If Needed

The critical piece of this step is not getting too complicated or overly hard on yourself.  All your looking for is the tiny victories that may not seem like much.  However, if you can’t do the little things correctly, you will never be able to accomplish the big stuff.

What’s the Best Way to Set Achievable Goals? Aim for The Stars but Stay Grounded

This is a big step in taking the small wins but also aiming for the moon at the same time. You want a nice blend of long-term goals and short-term goals.  The short-term goals you can use as a nice runway and platform to slowly start chipping away towards the nice meaty lofty and unrealistic goals.  Without the unrealistic difficult goals, things can get a bit boring and tough to keep the “dreaming spirit” alive.

Don’t lose sight of the unrealistic goals but also don’t fail to have an excellent well-planned roadmap that can help you start the process of reaching them.  This can be something as simple as waking up every day at the same time. Obviously, it needs to be earlier than your usual time on your way to attempting to build your own a company or achieving something that requires you to produce more hours in the day.  Create time when necessary to get a leg up on the enemies and yourself.

It could also be being something as simple as walk 15 minutes every day on your way to losing to 40lb or getting back in shape. The point is that setting the bar too high ultimately leads to failure and fuels disappointment, but it’s still important to have those big goals.  The little goals each day will help build your confidence, self-esteem and give you a small piece of pride to take with you toward the big goal. 

How to Become More Serious About Goals? 5 Little Bonus Tips

Focus and Discipline-The first step you need to take to becoming laser focused and getting more serious about your goals is to visualize that end reward.  I know we discuss the importance of baby steps and that’s 100% true.  However, you must know the ultimate prize.  Without knowing or having the ability to visualize the result, you have no idea what you are even chasing.

Things Get Tough- If you don’t know why you should wake up or why you should go for that 3-mile run in the 40-degree weather than you have an issue. It’s going to be hard and you need to be prepared for that.  Remember, take the baby steps, but if you can’t see the results right away. It becomes tough to stay locked in and serious about your goals. Just keep plugging away.  It will happen.

The Reason Why-You also must understand your “reason why.”  Why are you after this goal?  What made you contemplate chasing this dream in the first place? Without a reason why, it’s hard to stay motivated or serious about your goals.  Are you trying to climb out of debt or maybe provide for your kids or family?  Figure out that reason and continue to remind yourself of it each and every day. Any chance you get, you need to keep it top of mind.

Tell Someone Else- An excellent way to stay serious about goals is to take a swift kick in the rear from someone you know for slacking off.  Let someone else know your goals, dreams, and aspirations that way you are 100% certain that you will have someone asking about progress and pointing fingers when you decide to get lazy.

Key Tip- Don’t tell someone that you don’t care what they think or how they react.  The point of this is to tell someone that you want to show your worth too or that cares about your success.  Telling someone that won’t hurt your feelings either way at the outcome of your goals defeats the purpose.  There should be a small emotional component attached to this.

Give a Little-  Give up something to reach it.  The list of the ways you could twist this is endless.  For me, it was scary as hell.  I gave up perhaps the most secure profession on the planet with a job I could guarantee 60-75K a year in the bank until I retired or died.

Yes, I get it. I’m an idiot.  However, I hated what I was doing and had my first son the same year.  I worked terrible shift work, and could bust my tail to see all of what? No raise, no satisfaction, and it was honestly just too easy.  I get it that some may be jealous of that income for doing an easy job but don’t be.  It’s mind numbing and borderline depressing.

Want the Challenge

I wanted to be challenged and wanted to change my hours and chances of seeing my kids 80% more of the time over the course of 18 years.  I took a risk, made a change and at times, it sucked.  Sucked terribly. 

I’m now very pleased with decision however.  It’s afforded me a vast amount of time with my family. Even through the shaky and terrifying beginnings, the sun eventually rose again, and it started getting easier to climb out. 

I’m not even out of the woodwork yet but I have confidence at this point and an action plan to keep pushing forward. Trust me, things get easier and things get better. Don’t give up on it too early.

Others Will Call You Crazy- Trust Me

The point is, I had a lot of people who also thought I was an idiot for taking the blind leap of faith.  DO NOT GO QUIT YOUR JOB because of this post.  The point is that your mental state shifts dramatically if you give up something or have something riding on your goals.  Make it matter to make it serious.

Again, please note- Don’t go quit your job or do something drastic because of the example.  If you do and it pans out, I commend the effort and leap of faith but if you do it and it doesn’t pan out, just remember, I specifically said not to do that.  Make that decision after careful consideration, planning, and soul diving before ultimately doing anything too drastic.

How Do I Regain Lost Focus?

First and most importantly.  Don’t think because you're reading this that I’m an expert in maintaining focus.  Keeping focus can absolutely suck sometimes.  I get it, and it happens to all of us.  Hell, I even write down my goals before bed and look at them before work and 5 minutes into my day. I still can find myself getting off task very quickly.

You Won’t Win This Battle Every time

If you even learn to perfect this. Let me know.  Keeping 100% laser focus at all times is tough.  The important thing is to have ways to regain focus and get back on track.  Things happen in life.  To all of us.  It’s easy to get distracted.  For me, writing goals down and visually looking at them daily is what can help re-steer me in the right direction.

Don’t beat yourself up over this at when it happens.  We are all human, and it WILL happen. Recollect yourself and get back into hunting mode and get back to work. The sun will rise again.

How Are You Going to Speed Up the Process? How Will You Achieve Your Goals?

Remember.  Dreams without goals are ultimately just dreams and fuel disappointment.  Start achieving faster.  The easiest way to start doing this is by merely DOING. Fail quickly, learn from your mistakes and don’t be overly hard on yourself.  We all get knocked down and hit off the path from time to time.  Refocus, re-visualize and reinvent and move on.

How are you going to start speeding up the process and achieving your goals faster?