Achieve Goals with these 5 Simple Steps

 

I love the New Year’s spirit. It sparks up new ambitions, renews hope, brings focus and gives us permission to try again. With the desire to change our lives for better; we dare to step into an unknown land of 365 days of the year. This is our chance to write a beautiful story of our lives.

We are encouraged to set SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic & Timely) goals. Much to my surprise, I found this technique not-so-rewarding for my vision. To make this year better than last year, it is vital to change conventional approach towards goal setting.

Aiming to achieve extraordinary results require us to Think Big and Start Small. Here are 5 simple steps to achieve goals with great fulfillment:

1. Dream Big and Capture the Vision

Let your imagination fly as you dream big. Give yourself permission to dream a future where you meet the best version of YOU. What do you see yourself accomplishing? What difference do you see making for the greater good? How do you feel regarding this best version of YOU? Now, write down your vision and plan your goals based on your dream. This ought to be the first step towards writing your life’s goals.

Dream-driven goals are mandatory to keep you inspired. Click To Tweet On the contrary SMART goals will limit your creative thinking and will rob you from dreaming big.

Don’t be limited by your reality. Dare to dream BIG.

Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than the one with all the facts. – Albert Einstein

2. Set Dream-Driven Goals

Dream-driven or purpose-driven goals, formulates your mindset efficiency towards life’s work. Every goal should lead to your vision. Goals set without any intention to make progress toward your vision turn into daily-driven tasks. Task-driven goals will derail the focus set to reach your desired future. So attach every relevant goal to your dream.

For example, if you see yourself as a successful wild-life photographer, then the dream-driven goal should be to create a highly professional wild-life photography portfolio.

   Without something productive to do, without positive goals and a purpose, a human being languishes. And then one of two things happens. Aimlessness begins to shut a person down in spiritual lethargy and emptiness, or the individual lashes out and turns to destructive goals just to make something happen.— Tom Morris

3. Plan Process-Oriented Goals

Every dream-driven goal needs to be broken down to a specific process. Without knowing what steps to take or which path to travel on – one cannot arrive at the desired destination in a timely manner. Process-oriented goal will equip you with clear direction, effectiveness and progress.

Now ask yourself, what steps or process do I need to achieve my dream-driven goal? Create that process and commit to it. The process-oriented goal may look like this:

• Do 50 push-ups every day
• Practice singing for 30 minutes every day

Let’s see what process a wild-life photographer may consider to reach their goal:

• Week 1: Learn about cameras and lenses
• Week 2: Learn about lighting
• Week 3 & 4: Practice taking 3 great wildlife photos per week

Process-oriented goals will help with acquiring skill-development, discipline and consistency to reach the final destination.

Give us the tools and we will finish the job. -Winston Churchill

4. Schedule it

Writing down the goals, plans and processes feel wonderful. However, they will not get done if you do not schedule them.  Allocating time for the process-oriented goal will assure its completion. Therefore, block time on your calendar to accomplish that priority.

Here are 5 benefits of scheduling your process-oriented dream-driven goals:

1. Provides an overview of time that is required to achieve your dream
2. Develops time-management skills
3. Promotes work-life balance
4. Holds you accountable
5. Motivates you to get things done

For example,

Week 1: 9:00 am to 10:00 am: Learn about cameras and lenses

The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities. – Stephen Covey

5. Take action with 5 second rule

What good will it do if you dream big, set goals, plan steps, schedule them and still not take any action. All these efforts demonstrate your level of faith in your dreams. However, faith without action is dead.

So many people give up on their dreams because they get overwhelmed by this entire process of goal-setting and committing. And I can relate to this feeling. It is not easy to follow through this entire process. In the beginning we all start our journey with renewed motivation. However, sooner or later our motivation slows down. A time comes when we really need to see tangible results that enable us to believe in our dream, but that need is challenged with invisible results – this becomes the tipping point where most people give-up.

For visionaries, giving up is not an option. The vision needs to be internalize by consistently working towards it. Click To Tweet

So how can you continue to take action when you really do not feel like it? Mel Robbins, author of ‘The 5 Second Rule’, explains how we can learn to conquer our own feelings.  Mel explains how counting backwards from 5 (5-4-3-2-1) can prevent your brain from presenting to you all the excuses-drudgery-negative-fearful thoughts and help you take action.

Simply count 5-4-3-2-1 and jump right into the action that seems too tedious to perform. This technique has proven to be helpful when your daily dose of motivation is running low. Now, go and take action! Click To Tweet

If you don’t start doing the things you don’t feel like doing, you will wake up one year from today and be in exactly the same place. – Mel Robbins

5-4-3-2-1, start applying these 5 goal-setting steps and experience the transformation that you have always desired.

Share with us in the comments below, which goals were you able to accomplish by applying these simple 5 steps.

Simplifying Business; Amplifying lives – UPXCEL

By – Praneet Kaur