And it’s again a beginning of a new year. That’s when we promise ourselves to become better and achieve more. We promise ourselves to loose something and to gain some. We plan to run, or swim, or both. Decide on spending more time with family and kids. We hope to have more vacations and indeed relaxing time off. All these we usually call GOALS and brought together as a list we call it “New Year Resolutions”.
Unfortunately, the reality is that some of those promises, goals and plans will never become true. Some will be abandoned in a few days, weeks or month. And some goals will be simply forgotten.
So how can we make sure that our perfect new year goals will actually become our reality?
The best way to have your best life is just to stack your best years on top of each other. ~ Michael Hyatt
Try these 5 great advises I collected from hight achievers and see how the things start traversing from dream to reality of your life!
1. Don’t Loose visibility of your goals.
Review them often as it is easy to get distracted and forget about what you were planning to achieve. It is a good habit to spend a minute each day to re-read them. Set a calendar reminder for monthly reviews and progress tracking. Practice quarterly reviews that can include necessary adjustments (more details on that in advise #5)
2. Be emotionally engaged with your goals.
If you aren’t emotionally connected to achieving that goal, you aren’t going to accomplish it. Most probably, pretty soon, you will loose interest and give up. Keep asking yourself a “Why?” question for every goal you set. Find as many WHYs as you can for the most complicated goals of yours.
The emotional aspect of goals is what drives us to choose going to the gym over finding another excuse to skip it. Emotional engagement gives you power to study for that complicated exam that will advance your career over watching a new episode of super famous show. Emotional connection is what helps you avoid procrastination!
3. Create A Visual Goals Board!
Vision boards are actually a great helpers. You can make it simple by printing your goals list or go above and beyond with creative ideas. Visualization is one of the most powerful mind exercises you can do.
4. Set Daily Tasks related to your Goals.
Important part of this advise is to not overload your your daily to-do list in order not to feel as a looser at the end of the day. Focus on creating a doable to-to list that works on achieving your goals.
5. Revise your goals and adjust your list if required.
While setting your goals is important to set Real and Measurable ones. During a year it is good to perform a quarterly goals revisions to make sure all goals are still relevant and you have enough time allocated to work on them.
It is okay to adjust or completely remove a goal or two in order to focus on other important ones. Sometimes setting a goal we underestimate efforts and time required to achieve it. For example, during the review we can divide our goal in phases and allocate certain phase for this year and move the following ones to the early stage of the following year. That will allow your goal to be well divided and measured at the end of each phase. As a result, you will be able to see and track a progress of yours way better. In plus it will give you a confidence that you are indeed moving forward.
Make this 5 advises your habit and I promise you will start being more focused, more motivated and will be able to see the progresses way faster.
For additional information on this topic, please read my HOW TO WRITE NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS AND STICK TO THEM article.
Never Give Up!
Keep revisiting the goals is very important and this is where i should get better at. Great tips!
Thank you! I am really happy you found a useful information in this article!
This is such a great post, it really is the dream to make your goal a reality and we all need a little help in putting the right foot forward.
Thank you Sarah! Indeed, planning, visualizing and reviewing are great helpers in this process.
A visual board is a great idea. I am surely going to do this. So glad to come across your article. Thank you.
Glad you found it useful Sudipta. I have my visual board hanging on the wall for years and when I look at it it’s unbelievable that the majority of goals already became a reality! It really works.
You’re so right. Knowing your goals, setting plans and having small tasks to achieve it all makes all the difference. Gotta go make my to-do list
Hi Blanka. Great stuff! Good luck in planning and thank you for reading.
Not losing visibility of your goals is a very important part of attaining them. In order to achieve them, you must stay focused on what it takes to get to them.
Agree. Visibility is super important. And that what really helps to stay focused without dropping the ball.
In order to achieve it, you got to believe in it! Otherwise, no one else will.
Totally agree Suzanne! You need to believe in it, in yourself and love what you do!
Sometimes baby steps are what we need to achieve our goals. I love these tips. I also love the creative photos with scrabble tiles!
Thank you Melanie for the comment! Yep, one step at a time and no fear about tomorrow helps. I lately noticed how peaceful and at the end of the day productive is to live in a fraction of “today”. The main idea is to not worry about what was yesterday and stop being scared, frustrated about tomorrow. Trying to live in a fraction of “today” and be your best self today is a lucky ticket to a accomplished tomorrow.
These were all great tips. I wrote a similar post about this on my blog. Thanks for making it so easy to understand.
Thank you Dee. I will definitely go a read your article on this topic.
I started setting daily reminders and that has helped me out a lot. Accountability is key too. I have a group that I meet with once a week and it has helped to keep me on track as well
What a great techniques you are using Andrea! Daily reminders and being a part of a group that shares same vision and motivates each other is just awesome way to remain on track.
Creating a visual board is something that helped me a lot to accomplishing some of my goals. The more I see things I want, the more I try. Thanks for the sharing the tips!
Thank you for the kind comment! I have my visual board that already travelled 3 different countries with me and IT WORKS, it really works!!! Visual board helps me to “keep my eyes on a prize” and keeps me moving toward the dream/goal until it is reached.
This is a great way to accomplish what you want from life. You do have to make a plan, set daily goals for yourself and keep the larger vision in mind.
Thank you Elliott. Totally agree, BIG plan divided in chunks and then into daily tasks with one step at a time will eventually bring us to a state of “Goal Accomplished”.
I like that you give the option to revise. I’m all about if something’s not working, tweak it or change it until you’re good!
Indeed, revising, is a very important part of the process leading to a success.
I think a visual goals board will really help me with the new project that I am currently working on. That’s something I’ve never thought of. Other tips are practical and easy to follow as well.
So glad to hear that Vidya! Lots of success to you new project. Yes, advises are simple as long there is a formatted habit to repeat them day by day.
These are definitely good workable advices especially with making daily tasks in relation to our goals.
Thank you Toyin. I am glad you find them useful!
I think the most important thing is “Implement” as without it your plans will useless. Always plan ahead too.
Indeed Damian, “Implement” is super important and breaking big goals into manageable tasks really helps to never stop implementing.
This is a great read. I enjoyed it very much. It’s still the beginning of year so these tips will be able to help make our goals a reality.
Thank you Lisa!!! Glad you enjoyed it. Wish you a fruitful year.
I like the idea of a visual board. Great tips – thank you!
Most times, we just set the goals, follow the goals but never revisit them, and along the line we loose sight of these goals..
Nina these are great tips and,, I couldn’t agree with you more!!