How to actually achieve the goals you have set for yourself?

Do you know anyone who’s like Tamanna?

Tamanna is a Bcom graduate. She graduated way back in 2011.

Since then, she has worked in one bank after another.

She finished her MBA (in finance) in 2016. However, after completing her MBA, she took up a job in a sales position at yet another bank.

Tamanna is 31 years old and doesn’t know where her career is going.

She’s simply going through a routine life that has no purpose.

She has no purpose or goal whatsoever.

No wonder her career isn’t going anywhere.

Now, compare the career of Tamanna with that of Dinesh.

Dinesh wants to retire by 45 years and get into composing music to his heart’s content.

To do that, he has to create sources of incomes that support that lifestyle.

He’s 27 years old, and that’s exactly what he’s doing.

Dinesh knows exactly what he wants and how to get it.

Having goals are so important.

Without goals, you have no purpose. And without a purpose, you will just be floating around aimlessly, and your career wouldn’t get anywhere.

Without goals, you wouldn’t know if you are achieving success or not.

Without goals, you wouldn’t know where you are going in life.

Without goals, you wouldn’t know what to focus on and what to ignore.

Basically, you would have an aimless and chaotic life without goals.

But how do you set goals?

Let’s have a look.

5 Principles of Successful Goal Setting

Dr. Edward Locke and Dr. Gary Latham are have spent decades on the goal-setting theory.

According to them, the 5 fundamental principles in goal setting are:

1. Commitment – This shows how deeply you are attached to the goal and how determined you are to achieve it.
   
   The more committed you are to your goals, the less you will likely give up when you face obstacles.
   
   
2. Clarity – Your goals must be clear, specific and measurable.
   
   When we see vague goals, we usually lose the motivation to work towards our goals.
   
   That’s because we wouldn’t know what sequence of events we must complete to reach our goals.
   
   
3. Challenging – Your goals must be challenging. Challenges drive people to do better and improve themselves.
   
   However, it should not be so challenging that it becomes unattainable.
   
   
4. Task Complexity – Set goals that are in line with your skills and abilities.
   
   Also, the deadline to achieve your goals must be realistic.
   
   Overambitious goals may lead to demotivation and procrastination due to being overwhelmed.
   
   

Feedback – Always have a feedback system in place. A good feedback system brings unbiased input on how the goal is being achieved and your progress.

This evaluation helps you recalibrate your efforts, eliminate harmful practices and stick to good practices.

Don’t be ashamed of wanting to be rich and wealthy

Pretty much everyone wants to be rich.

It’s nice to have a lot of money.

You can enjoy the experience of staying at 5-star hotels around the world.

You can experience the cuisines around the world.

You can experience the amazing places around the world.

You can experience the thrill of driving luxury cars like Lamborghini, Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz.

You can experience the joy and comfort of living in a luxurious mansion with a swimming pool, big rooms, fantastic bathrooms and more.

In short, once you have a lot of money, you can enjoy life and experience amazing things.

And that’s the whole point of having money.

This makes people make acquiring a ton of wealth from their north star.

Their whole goal is to make more and more money.

First of all, let me clarify that making a ton of money and buying luxurious and expensive things are not wrong.

Never be ashamed of wanting to have a Ferrari or a multi-million dollar mansion.

If that’s what you want, then so be it.

The challenge is to take it from being an audacious dream to making it a reality.

And it all starts with writing down how much money you need to have to make your dreams come true and work backwards.

Different people have different ways of getting wealthy and living their dream.

But no matter what path you take, never let anyone shame you for dreaming about becoming rich.

Stay humble. Stay kind. Stay honest. But if buying a fancy mansion and a luxury car is your dream, then follow your dream.

Remind yourself

One of the core reasons people start to achieve their dreams and then fail halfway is losing sight of their goal.

The human mind is insufferably volatile. 

We get distracted easily.

On the road to achieving our goals and dreams, we get engaged in so many activities and tasks that we often forget our goal.

That’s why reminding ourselves of our goals is healthy and often necessary.

Write down your goals.

Stick it on something that you use every day, like a mirror or on your laptop.

After a few days, write down your goal again and do the same thing.

Anytime you lose your way, this process will get you back on the right track.

Break down your goals into smaller goals

Ambitious goals take time to achieve.

You could achieve your goals in 5 years or 20 years.

This time frame could make any goal appear unachievable. And that could demotivate you.

After all, that’s a long time to work hard consistently.

What you need to do is break your large goals into smaller goals.

If you need to break these smaller goals further into even smaller goals, then do that.

Once you have small and achievable goals, go after them.

Don’t focus on the large goal. Instead, focus on the next small goal.

Every time you successfully achieve a small goal, you win.

It’s a small win. But it’s a win nevertheless.

Every win would motivate you to achieve the next goal. Every time you win, you get more determined.

Don’t forget. You reach your big ambitious goals by adding hundreds and thousands of small wins together.

Do you know your WHY?

Why do you want to achieve that goal?

Why did you set that as your goal in the first place?

How you answer this WHY would determine whether you would achieve your goal or not.

If your WHY is weak, doesn’t motivate you, and doesn’t inspire you to do great work, you will have a tough time achieving your goals.

And even if you do achieve your goal, you wouldn’t feel that sense of accomplishment.

Because your WHY is what drives you to do amazing things.

The more ambitious and audacious your goals are, the stronger and deeper your WHY needs to be.

Almost like a do or die situation.

Conclusion

Goals are what makes living exciting and worthwhile.

Without goals, we are like any other animal – eat, sleep, reproduce, eat and sleep.

In short, all we do is survive and stay alive.

But if you want to really live and enjoy life, then we must have goals.

So go and write down your goals.

Don’t be afraid of failing to achieve your goals.

Take it as a challenge, and don’t stop till you achieve it.

What are your 1 year, 5 year and 10 year goals?

Write them down in the comments section and see who else has the same goals as yours.

(And if you don’t have any goals, this might be a good time to sit down, think really hard and come up with a few goals.)