We often like to define first what we are aiming for at the onset of any activity – the so-called anticipated result of our actions – so the purpose is clear in our minds. Once a goal is set, we can devise action plans, determine the time required to achieve the objective, and decide what resources are needed to bring about the desired end. With the basics in place, we then go about doing the actual work while we monitor our progress against the plan we put into place.

“Easy! Nothing complicated about it!” you might say.

The problem is, if goal setting were as easy as following the prescribed outline found in many personality development books, why do you often find yourself abandoning your goals midstream?

Let me tell you.

The problem lies in the way we define and subsequently treat our goals!

Let me explain.

All too often, we fail to break down our lofty personal goals into more manageable tasks or, conversely, account for what our action plan can actually deliver.

For instance, if your goal were to lose 30 pounds in 5 months – a classic example to illustrate this point – how would you go about achieving this?

If we were to break down this goal into its component parts, this would mean a weight loss of 1.5 lbs during your very first week, right?

Big mistake!

During your first week, in all likelihood, you will be preoccupied with the basics, like:

• purchasing an accurate weighing scale, if you don’t have one yet, so you can regularly monitor your weight
• consulting a doctor or personal trainer to help you assess which exercise regimen is best for you
• acquiring the exercise gear you need
• mapping out your jogging/walking route or enrolling in a gym
• researching which diet plan to follow
• ridding your household of those tempting treats still found in your pantry or refrigerator

Before you know it, the first week is over and you are NOT 1.5 lbs lighter!

Worse yet, after realizing you have failed at the outset and discouragement sets in, you begin to wallow in misery. You look at your plan in disdain and begin to seriously have doubts. You know very well how this story will end, don’t you?

Goal setting done the right way CAN help you achieve what you set out to do. Just be mindful of the following goal setting tips when formulating your own goals:

1. Be Honest

Using the SMART principle (specific, attainable, realistic, time-bound), define your goals truthfully. If you are not the type who responds well to stretched goals, then be more conservative in your approach!

2. Think Things Through

Define your goals clearly. What do you need by way of resources? What steps do you need to take to achieve your objectives? How long should each task take? How would you be able to tell if adjustments are needed?

3. See in Your Mind’s Eye How Your Plan will Progress

Carefully scrutinize you action plan and see  how this will affect your quantifiable targets. Be mindful of what your action plan can actually deliver and set your goals accordingly. Conversely, make sure your action plan can deliver the desired result.

4. Do the Work

Goals are met only when you do the work required work to achieve them. Wishful thinking or divine intervention won’t help you here, so don’t expect something to happen when you haven’t done anything!

5. Be Flexible

Account for the unexpected. Circumstances change. Be ready to tweak your goals if the situation calls for it but never lose sight of your goals’ underlying essence.

6. Reward Yourself

Pat yourself on the back for a job well done! As you come closer to achieving your goal, celebrate each milestone achieved!

Do you know of other goal setting tips? I would love to hear from you! Just leave me a note and let me know.

If you like to keep up with all the tips I offer on personality development, managing time, and increasing productivity, sign up for my RSS feed or follow me on Twitter! I also offer a free time management course on www.managemytimenow.com!

I have always been troubled by the idea that in our society, which is all about achieving success, there are only 3% of the people who are actually living the lives of their dreams. It seems so mindboggling isn’t it?

There are so many tools out there and so many opportunities, yet somehow, the majority of us cannot seem to put this success puzzle into place.

And that is exactly why I have studied successful people, their autobiographies and biographies over the past 5-6 years to figure out how they really think.

And here’s what I have found. There are key differences in how some of the world’s most successful people like Sir Richard Branson, Donald Trump, Warren Buffet think and how the rest of the world thinks.

Here are the top ten views and values I have found that seem to be common to the world’s most successful people while these same views seem to be missing from most people.

1. Successful people do not care what others think of them.
2. Successful people view failure as a stepping stone.
3. Successful people are motivated by their dreams.
4. Successful people think mostly about growth and opportunity.
5. Successful people are action oriented.
6. Successful people are masters of making the most of their time.
7. Successful people create success habits.
8. Successful people have a vision and a plan.
9. Successful people are always looking to learn and ask questions.
10. Successful people commit to their goals.

Ok, I know I haven’t done justice to these points because I haven’t explained them with the examples and tips on how to start cultivating these habits but I just want you to start thinking about these for now.

And I’ll soon let you know where you can download a full blown account of these habits, how successful people use them and how you can start building them very soon.

And here’s the challenging part. Now that all the excitement and the holidays are gone, life starts to get in the way of new goals and habits.

You see most of the people I have talked to tell me that they always find it easier to set a new goal and create a roadmap to achieve that goal. They also find it quite easy to start on a new goal but what most of them tell me is that somewhere down the road the motivation fades away, life gets in the way and the goals start getting pushed aside just a little more everyday.

You know what this leads to? The all familiar stress, sense of defeat and overall a horrible feeling.

It’s that horrible feeling that we want to avoid PLUS we also want to achieve our goals…that’s why we set them right?

Yes, there are a few very important things you can do right at the beginning when you set your goals to make sure they motivate you and help you get through challenges (and we’ll talk more about that over the coming weeks) but what I want to talk about right now is something you can do right now without going back to goal setting mode again.

This step is very easy to do but has a huge payoff. Please do not skip it! Alright, here’s what you need to do:

1. You need to create a good support system

Basically, your support system is something that can keep you going when all you want to do is throw in the towel. It needs to have the ability to keep you from giving up and should be able to help you stay on track.

Your support system can be as simple as a group of friends who call you to check up on how you’re doing with your goals every once in a while or a simple reward system you set up for yourself.

Here’s a few examples

1. Your buddies: If you have a friend (or a few friends) you can share everything with: a. You’re very lucky and b. you can ask them to help you out with your goals by checking up on you.  Tell your friend what your goals for the week are and ask them to check in a week later, this really works for people who need a little outside push to keep going. Having a real person on the other side ask me about my goals really gives me an extra push so this is something I use regularly for a lot of the rather challenging goals and projects.
2. Progress Tracking for habits: The thing with habits is that once you do something repeatedly for more than 30 days it becomes a part of your routine. Of course, those 30 days are the hardest. You can use anything from a complex software to simple pen and paper matrix to track your habits and stay motivated. I prefer the simplistic approach. Of course, you can use excel or an online service to do the same thing but I’ve found that the print method works much better for me and for a lot of people because remembering to look into excel or go to the goal tracking website is quite hard itself but when it’s pen and paper, it’s on your desk so that makes it easier to remember.
3. Journals/Good notes:If you are someone who really likes to spend sometime clearly writing everything down and reflecting everyday this could be your best support system. For those of you who find journalling a chore (myself included), try using a different approach. Personally, I use a timelog (yes those horrible timelogs that’s used in most companies..but hey, they work even if you are just working for yourself) and a  simple system to deal with daily input, goals and projects and everything else (this is where most people get stuck because they get overwhelmed with everything they have to do, everything that’ blowing up and everything they want to do. Journalling can help you a little here but creating a system that works for you is a much more effective and rewarding approach here. You can learn how to do that here) You can also try experimenting with journalling a little (it doesn’t have to be structured) and see how that works for you.
4. Mentors and coaches: Mentors and coaches are just amazing in helping you reach your goals. You just need to find the right one and we’ll talk more about that later but what I want you to remember for now is that your mentor or coach can be a friend or someone in the family as well. It doesn’t have to be a structured setting with a certified coach or anything too complex.

Alright, that should give you a couple starting points in creating your own support system. The next step is to decide which ones you want to use and set it up! You’re going to need it very soon, trust me on that!

1.    photo credit: Ed Battle1

You see, there’s one little thing you can do this year to make sure that you follow through with your new year’s resolutions even if you’ve never followed through with any of your resolutions before.

Ready?

Here’s what you need to do. You need to create a plan to stick to your new year’s resolutions. And here’s why:

Some of you know that Tony Robbins has had a great influence on me and one of the things he always says is Never leave the site of setting a goal without making a plan. Look, when you don’t make a plan for yourself you do not have any obligation to follow through on your goals or resolutions.

It’s the Plan that gives you the motivation (or at least tells you what to do) when all the motivation from reading a book or listening to a speaker is gone.

But the main reason I like to make a plan as soon as I have a new goal is this: I don’t have to think about it! I don’t have to worry about forgetting it or not working on it…it’s all in the plan and in my schedule so it starts to become something like second nature and that’s exactly where you want to be with your resolutions…don’t you?

And we’ll talk about going from a plan into step by step actions that you can take later..but for now let’s plan things out.

1. The first thing I want you to do is visualize (or think about) what your goal would look like or what you’d look like as a result of your new year’s resolutions in a year. Think about all the specifics.

If your goal is to lose weight, how much weight? If the goal is to setup a new business, what is that business going to look like in a year? If the goal is to get new clients, how many new clients?

2. Now you need to start thinking of where you are right now. Think about how you’re currently doing with your resolutions and write that down.

3. List all your assets that are going to help you get to where you want. Think about key contacts, money, past experiences, anything that could help you.

4. The next step is to figure out exactly what you need to do to get to where you have visualized yourself at on Dec 31, 2010.

Listen, we all have some sort of general ideas about what we need to do to achieve our goals and all I’m asking you to do is to jot them down on paper for now. And, if you feel like there’s a gap that you aren’t sure about just ask your contacts (who’ve had success doing what you want to do) or refer to a book/magazine/trusted article that can help you out a little.

Take a couple days to complete this exercise and I’ll show you how to take your rough plan and turn it into a step by step action plan for easy and stress free way to stick to your new year’s resolution.

photo credit: Lazurite

Did you start 2009 with brand new and exciting ideas, goals and plans? It’s time to a review your year and figure out exactly where you want to go in 2010.

I know I know, sounds like a boring concept when all you want to do is party ..right? Well, maybe but the important thing is doing a little review before you welcome the New Year is an excellent way to take a look at your New Years goals and map out a plan to achieve those goals.

Listen, let me be completely honest with you: Most people make new years resolutions and completely forget about their goals and dreams in a day or two. And those who do remember their resolutions give up before the end of the first week because they are overwhelmed and don’t know what to do.

Anyhow, we’ll talk more about new years resolutions and how to make them real later on this week but for now, I want you to stop what you’re doing and take 30 minutes to do a little excercise that will help you gain clarity and focus in 2010.

Ready?

1. Review Your New Year Resolutions for 2009: (5 minutes)

Now, I’m hoping that you still remember your goals. (And, give yourself extra points if you had them written down somewhere). Anyhow here’s what I want you to do:

• Take a piece of paper and write down what your goals for 2009 were.
• Now, beside every single goal I want you to put a number between 0 and 100 that tells you how close you are to that particular goal. So, if one of your goals for 2009 was to exercise everyday and you have developed a habit of doing something twice a week, you may want to put down a 20% or even a 70% if that sounded unachievable a year ago.

Listen, the key is how far you have come along with YOUR goals….so give yourself a fair number.

• Look at your list and take full and complete responsibility for where you are at with every single one of your goals.

And that does mean congratulating yourself for everything you’ve done right to achieve your goals or to even just stay in the playing field.

2. Make 2010 goals: (10 minutes)

• Make goals for every part of your life that is important to you. Make business, career , health, family, relationships, financial, life goals for the new year.

It’s important to include every aspect of life that’s important to you even if your major focus is going to be on only 1 of these things. Grow a little in each aspect and that will help you with your main goal.

• Make sure your goal is measurable. One of the main reasons people don’t keep their new years resolutions is because they don’t make it measurable.

I want my business to do well is not a measurable goal. Put in some realistic but big numbers.

• Make your goals BIG but realistic: Another reason people don’t keep their new years resolutions is because it’s too boring. Their goals are too small, too easy. Set a big goal that will keep you challenged.

3. Mark Milestones Dates but don’t get too detailed yet (15 minutes)

There’s two reasons for this:

• A year is a long time and, trust me, you will forget all about your goals if you wait until Dec 31st to review them and see how you’re doing.
• A big goal is BIG and overwhelming.

Ok now that you have your big 2010 goals written down, I want you to first of all, save it and print off that sheet of paper. (or, put it in a notebook or something that you can look at frequently and make sure it’s something you are not going to throw away before 2011)

• Now sit down with each goal (each one should take roughly 3-5 minutes)
• What are the distinct steps for each goal? (See example if needed)

Now listen, this is the key. This is how you measure a good goal. A good goal should have distinct looking phases or things you can measure to tell how you’re doing. Write them down, it does not have to be perfect.

• Assign dates for each little step. And Mark those dates on your calendar. And, setup reminders for those dates.

Alright here’s a real example.

One of my mom’s goals for the new year is to experiment with a new business idea (on the side while she’s busy with everything else). She wants to import handmade jewelries, handbags and sell them here. Here’s how I would break that down in 5 minutes.

• Market Research: Is this a good idea? (Feb 1)
• Create marketing plan (feb 20)
• Get all the paperwork, incorporation etc done (April 15)
• Research vendors and order samples (May 25)
• Distribute samples (July 10)
• Gather feedback (July 30)
• Choose 2 vendors (Aug 30)
• Order flyers (Sep 10)
• Distribute flyers to family and friends (Sep 25)
• Offer discounts for referring others (Sep 30)
• Setup marketing campaign (Oct 20)

Is that an all inclusive list? NO

Could she run her business based on this list? NO

Is it a good start thinking about what to do and break things down to get some work done. I think so.

Remember: Make a rough list (you’re going to go back and plan this out later) and assign rough dates (just think of your other commitments and plans and try to figure out when would be the best time to squeeze this new goal in)

Ok, that’s it.

Put the paper and pen down for now. Let the idea cook in the back of your mind while you ring in the new year.

And, we’ll talk about making more concrete plans to gain better clarity and focus on Jan 1.

Bye for now and Happy New Year 2010!
photo credit: Patrick Hoesly

And the great thing is….visualization does not always require you to close your eyes and form an image in your mind. You can create visual boards or even images to keep you on top of your goals.

And, if losing weight and becoming fit is one of your goals, you are in for a great treat!

WeightView is an innovative and free website that lets you upload a picture, select your target weight and “see” what you may look like at your target weight. It’s an excellent tool backed by a great community and lots of results. And, did I mention the fact that it’s free?

I think it’s a great website for anyone with fitness goals so…go ahead click the link and try it out.

Let me know what you think.

And it absolutely sucks when that happens!

So, here’s a great post I just found  by Alex Shalman on 30 Ways to Slow down and de-stress and I think you’ll love it! Alex’s tips are excellent and I personally use some of them..especially #3.

Every time I’m stressed out, I do run for my treadmill. It sure doesn’t sound relaxing but trust me, it helps (especially if you set it on high and run instead of just walking — it takes your mind off the ugly thing stressing you out). Plus, it’s good for your health..

No wonder I’ve lost some weight recently, somethings have me running for the treadmill every hour or so

Enjoy the article!

It’s frustrating, isn’t it? You put tons of time into breaking down the goals, establishing habits to achieve it and then something pops up and you have no idea where you even stand with your goals. Worse yet, you’ve already committed yourself fully to the goal and now you keep working at it except you’re making more mistakes than progress and this goal is draining you out like nothing!

Sound familiar?

Want to know what’s going on?

Truthfully, it could be a whole lot of things. It could be your brain telling you to slow down, it could be your goal was a little unrealistic or it maybe as simple as forgetting the reason why.

Sure I know…You want to lose weight so you can look great, you want a business so you can make more money, you want to manage your time so you can be with your kids…I know you are aware of your goals and logical reasons why you want to achieve them. That’s great but…there’s something even more important if you want unlimited motivation and energy to achieve your goals..

Let me explain..

You see, we humans are emotional creatures and what drives us inside isn’t the logical reasons why we want something BUT the emotional reasons why we want them.

I’d say we are more driven by the feelings that certain things provide us than owning, holding or even being what we want to become.

Let’s take an example..

Consider working out or exercising. That sure made it to a lot of our new year’s resolutions and I’m sure we all have valid and strong logical reasons behind it like…we want to fit into that dress, health reasons etc.

But…is it really that dress you want to fit into or is it the feeling that wearing that dress and knowing you’re attractive? Is it just your health reasons or the feeling that you don’t have to depend on your medication, that you have complete control of your life?

Listen, it’s true that all our goals have logical and emotional reasons why. In fact, if there weren’t emotional reasons we wouldn’t bother coming up with logical reasons. It’s the same thing we do when we buy stuff…emotions come first and then we back it up with some logic, don’t we? And, let’s face it half the time our logic doesn’t even make sense or in the case of our goals doesn’t provide enough glue to stick through when times get tough.

The solution:

Ok, take a deep breath and get a piece of blank paper. Imagine yourself being, doing or having what you want…how do you feel?

Or, how about the last time you exercised or had your weight under control or doubled your sales, how did that make you feel?

C’mon! Bring out the feelings..it’s those feelings that are driving us and the simple reason we want to achieve our goals is to experience those feelings again..

It’s that simple!

So….the next time you lose your drive for something..sit down and look at this piece of paper, I’ll guarantee you your drive will come back in an instant.

I was listening to 177 Mental Toughness Secrets by Steve Siebold this morning and one of the secrets he talks about is the whole waiting for the “right time” syndrome.

I must admit I was quite hesitant to embrace the idea of not waiting for the “right time” when I first heard about it. It sounded like the greatest betrayl of our intuitive feelings!

That was a couple years ago…my thoughts on this topic have changed a lot since applying some of his strategies into my life AND in working with a lot of people who’re struggling with procrastination…

And here’s the scoop…

Intuitive feeling is a good thing but when waiting for the “right time” stops you from achieving your goals…it’s probably not an intuitive feeling, it’s usually your fear of failure or perfectionism tendencies acting up!

And that’s exactly where most of us get stuck! We have a goal and then we end up listening to this feeling that says “Uh…not today”

Well here’s a quick way to get over the “not today” argument… Listen, the “right time’” is never going to come down and knock on your doors…it’s something YOU have to create..

Falling victim to the “right time will come and will eventually motivate me to get this thing done” will just put you into a panic mode when the deadline’s too close or worse yet, it will prevent you from achieving your major goals..

So the next time you’re waiting for the “right time” feeling…try this…Just get started on the work…

Counter-intuitive? You bet!

But here’s the deal with this…

The hardest part of feeling good about what you’re going to do is to overcome the inertia of doing it…it’s the inertia that creates the “maybe this isn’t the right time” feeling to try to keep you from not doing it. (Remember Newton? A body at rest remains in rest..)

Just try it!

(and let me know how it goes)

Check out the latest issue of your time management and personal
growth newsletter to find out!

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I’ll see you on the inside

P.S. please remember to forward this to your friends!

Rigdha