7 Powerful Techniques to Help You Achieve Your Goals
Every year, people around the world set out on a journey called the ‘New Years Resolution.’ For a strong majority, most resolutions die in the first quarter of the new year. What happens the next year is that people decide to commit to goals. And then the year goes by and they complete one or two of these goals and aren’t satisfied. How do I know this? Because I was one of those people for years.
Over the last few years, I have been on my own journey to learn how to create goals for a year, work through, and achieve them. I have purchased courses, read books, countless blog posts and have talked with other motivated people. As we close out this year and begin to prepare for next year, I am thinking a lot about how I can achieve my goals for next year.
Setting and achieving goals can be the most difficult and yet, the most rewarding part of our year. This year, I have have completed five of my six goals. And am astonished by how much easier it was by applying a few of the techniques below. These powerful insights have helped me shape 2017 in to one of my best years yet.
Combining some of these insights with preparing for achieving my goals has paid off this year.
7 Powerful Techniques to Achieving Goals
1. Start with Why
If we are setting goals to set goals, we will fail. This is why New Years Resolutions fail. We need to have a clear purpose to our goals. We need to focus on why we are creating them and why achieving them will make us better. The why in our goals carry us through the struggle of completing them.
2. Use A SMART System
If you have Googled ‘goal-setting’ you have likely found out about SMART goals. Here is a quick refresher. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Relevant and Time Bound goals. If you create a goal within this system, you have a higher likelihood of completing your goals.
3. Write them Down
Every resources I have found that has any creditability explain writing goals down is an important factor to achieving them. For some reason, merely saying that you are going to do something isn’t as powerful to us mentally as writing down goals. When we write them down, our chances of achieving our goals increase dramatically.
4. Share in Community
This can look different to everyone. However, if you have a spouse, a best friend and a mentor you have enough people to keep you accountable. You can share your goals online too. It is important to have community to keep us accountable, cheer us on, and help when we struggle to complete our goals.
5. Break them Down
It is essential to break goals down into bite sized chunks. Break your annual goals into monthly and weekly goals. Then during the week, pick a day to complete one or two of those little goals. Each day you move closer and closer to achieving your annual goals.
6. Review Regularly
This has also been very important. I review my annual goals weekly. And reset monthly goals at the end of each month. In reviewing them regularly, we keep our eyes on what we are trying to do. And we can make adjustments if we have had a bad week or a bad month. Its like checking the map on a road trip.
7. Believe in Yourself
The last one seems simple, and you might think it should be first. However, when you set goals, the best time to commit to believing in yourself is to do it after you have done all the planning. After you have done the work of planning, now you know that you can achieve your goals.
These techniques are the vehicle to making next year your best year yet. With a little planning, preparing and understanding your purpose to setting goals you can achieve them. And remember, when you go to set your goals, task this quote from Pablo Picasso with you.
“Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.”
-Pablo Picasso
If you haven’t found your priorities to help you set goals, download my FREE EBOOK: The True North Manifesto
