Setting goals is essential to achieving your dreams. Whether that dream is to be successful in business, sports, having a better family life or just having a healthier life, unless you have actually written your goals down in detail, they will remain nothing but vauge wishes.
With the new year just started, how many people made new years resolutions? Did you promise yourself you’ll lose weight? get fitter? spend more time with the kids? spend more time with your partner? do more to succeed with your home business?
How many of those people have already broken their resolution? I would say 95%. Thats only because I have faith in people, I do try to believe in the best of people, other wise I would say 99%-100% have already broken their resolution.
The reason so many people brake their resolutions, year after year, is because they are just wishfull dreams, nothing more.
Even those who write their goals down don’t write them down properly. Writing down what your goal is, or what you want to achieve isn’t enough. You need to get into more detail.
Writing your goals down is a tool, to focus our thoughts. It takes effort, energy and forces us to really think about how we will achieve our goals.
Some basic questions to ask yourself
- What do you really want?
- When do you want it?
- Why do you want it?
- How will you get it?
- Who will help you?
Write these questions down, think about them, take as long as you like. When you answer them, be precise. Go into as much detail as you like, the more the better. The more detail, the more precise and focused your answer, the much better ability you have of achieving your goals.
The reason you need to do this excersise is linked to emotion. Everything we do is linked to an emotional response.
You want to lose weight, you’ve stuck to the new celebrity diet for two weeks but there’s a party this weekend. You decide to take a break from your diet for one night. That decision is linked to an emotion – fear.
The fear of not losing as much weight as you would’ve liked. Much easier having the excuse of the party than actually sticking to the diet and not losing as much as you would’ve like and feeling like you have failed.
Your precise goal setting should touch on an emotional response. Joy, happiness, satisfaction, serenity, something that will keep you going when things get difficult, which they will. Plans rarely go smoothly, you need to be able to re-adjust, re-evaluate and keep going, not give up.
Having a very detailed, precise plan in place, with detailed steps on how you will work towards and achieve you goals will dramatically increase your ability to achieve your goals.
This is your life, don’t cheat yourself. Take the time, effort and energy needed to set your goals down properly, with detailed and precise reasons why you want to achieve this/these goals.
