"Hoping will not get you where you want to go, only executing consistently on the things you know bring success."
Shawn Manaher
I read this quote on my list of famous quotes today and it sparked this list of five things you can do to help you reach your goals for your life. Maybe back in January you said, "This is the year I take action on my goals." You sat at the kitchen table for an hour or two and decided what you really wanted to do and this is the year you're going to make it happen.
How are you doing on that goal list today? Is it time to re-evaluate and get excited about it? Goals are hard and sometimes seem unreachable if you aren't reaching milestones. Trust me, I know. I've set plenty of goals in my long lifetime that haven't panned out. If you're ready to get back at it, these five tips should prove useful.
Five Success Habits to Help You Reach Your Goals
Setting Clear Goals
If you want to achieve your goals, you have to take the time to clarify and strengthen your determination. You do that by making sure your goals are definable, achievable, and believable.
The first step of goal setting is writing your goal down. You can't just say, I have it in my head, I know what it is. Because in three to four months some other pretty shiny goal will pop up and then your old goal will disappear. You keep it in focus by writing the goal down and looking at it every day. Don't leave this step to chance. Make it even more intense by writing your goal on a piece of paper every morning. That keeps it top of mind.
Is your goal achievable and can it be achieved by actions you take? Chances are good you aren't going to go from earning $1K a year to a million dollars a year as a brand new writer with no published books or articles. We have to learn craft and marketing and sometimes we need more than one product before people find us.
Are you basing your goal on the hopes of someone else deciding to hire you? That means your goal is dependent on the other person. Your goal would be better in getting a degree in a specific major. In sports, it might be to gain twenty-five pounds of muscle, or learning to shoot twenty-five free throws in a row. Do you need to study for three hours a day (AFTER work) on this new area of interest? I used to go out to lunch by myself every day and read books that would help me reach my goals.
The Power of Action
A good goal has specific action steps you can take. It isn't just pie in the sky hoping. If you want to make the high school football team you have to learn how to block, tackle, and catch a pass. If you want to be a salesperson, then there are steps you need to learn to meet a potential client, pitch your product, and make a sale. Do you know what those steps are?
For writers, the steps are pretty simple. Write today. It means putting your butt in the chair and beginning to type on your computer. It might include making an outline or researching a physical place. I know a couple of people that have the ability to write a novel, but they never get past that middle part of the story, that lulls them into thinking they will never finish.
They may have valid reasons for not finishing the novel, but to reach goals, you must take action. Your must write. A basketball player will never score a basket if they never take a shot. A marketing person will never sell anything if they don't actually take the time to market their product. You must take action.
Embracing Discipline
Here's a laugher. Embrace discipline. You want to achieve your goal and you start out pretty good, but then comes that moment, and yes, that moment will come, when you have a chance to move forward, but something tells you, take today off. Then today, becomes tomorrow, then the weekend, the next week, and before too long you're left thinking, I'll never make it. That's the discipline you need to take action.
I belong to this Facebook group that is a writer's group. Our only goal is to write 250 words a day. If you did it every day you could conceivably write a novel a year. But I see so many of the members run into problems and let life's circumstances prevent them from taking action.
I have a Facebook acquaintance that published his first book around the same time I published mine. He now has thirty published novels. I have five published novels. I can offer a lot of reasons he's able to write more than I can, but they are just excuses. Writers write novels. They don't spend their writing time getting a cup of coffee, watching basketball games on TV, thinking of marketing ideas, or re-doing their website. They write first and then if they still have time, they can spend time on those other pursuits.
Adapting to Change
Technology is moving so fast these days. If you're not keeping up with technology improvements, then you may not reach your goals. As a former programmer, I can't think of one job I held that didn't change because of new software, new hardware, or changes in the external environment I was programming for.
Embrace change when it comes. It's hard to keep up, especially if you are a sameness person. Learn the new tech as fast as you can and start using it in your own action steps. I'm not an early adopter of new technology, but I try not to be a late adopter either.
Find a source that will tell you about new tools in your industry and, at the very least, learn enough about it to see if it can help you reach your goals.
I know as a writer/publisher things are constantly changing with marketing, publishing, and the retailers that carry our books. You have to keep an ear to the tracks to see if you need to pivot to something else to reach your goals.
Learning from Failure
I've failed more times than I care to admit, but I tried to learn from my failures and attempt to prevent failures from making me give up completely. A strong goal is helpful in this regard. If you really know what you want, then you will grieve for a day or two about the failure and find a way to re-focus on a new method that will move you in the direction you seek to go.
After a failure, ask yourself these three questions.
What went wrong?: This question allows reflection on the specific factors or actions that contributed to the failure. Understanding the root causes of the failure is crucial for learning and improvement.
What can I learn from this experience?: Failure provides valuable lessons that can inform future decisions and actions. Asking this question encourages a growth mindset, enabling you to extract insights and develop strategies to avoid similar pitfalls in the future.
How can I adjust my approach moving forward?: Rather than dwelling on the failure, focus on constructive steps to move forward. This question prompts individuals to adapt their strategies, set new goals, and implement changes based on the lessons learned from the failure, ultimately fostering resilience and progress.
Pick five action steps that will move you toward your goals
Now we are at the crux of the situation. You thought of a goal that you want to achieve this year. You've written the goal down. The next step is to think of five steps you can take today to move you to your goal. Write those five steps down. Maybe it isn't five, maybe it is fifteen. Every day you take those five to fifteen steps and move yourself to your success destination.
My wife and I walked across Spain back in 2015 doing the Camino de Santiago. We walked from St Pied de Port France, across the Pyrenees mountains and across northern Spain for five hundred miles. To reach the ending spot, Santiago, Spain, we had to make a plan.
- What needed to be in our backpacks for the journey?
- Where will we stop each day?
- How many miles did we have to walk each day to reach our destination within 30 days?
- What direction were we supposed to go each day?
- How much money would we need to reach our goal?
Then each day we answered those questions and walked for twelve to twenty miles each day. We knew our destination end point each day. We made sure we had the necessary water, the proper equipment, and we walked.
What are the five steps that you can take each day to reach your goal?
Write it down.
Take Action
Be Flexible
Discipline Yourself
Have Fun
