Steps To Achieving Goals

Whether you want to quit smoking, loose weight, or save enough money for that fabulous vacation, you need to set a goal and try to achieve it one step at a time. It is not always easy. For myriad reasons, we fall off the wagon and never bother to get on board.

A commitment to achieving your goal is the key to success. But knowing how to reinforce your commitment from time to time so that you don t go astray is also important. Reinforcing commitments regularly reminds us to catch the next train when we miss the one we are on board. The techniques described in this article will help you in reinforcing your commitments to achieving your goals.

1. Set your goals in measurable terms and take small steps.

Write your goals as precisely as possible. Instead of saying I will loose weight , write down I will loose 30 lbs in the next three months . Also, break it down into small steps. For example, I will loose 10 lbs a month for three months.

By setting your goals in measurable terms, you will have a solid idea of what successful completion of your goal means. By breaking down into small steps, you will be able to measure your success regularly and change your course if you are not meeting your intermediate goals.

2. Create a tag line for your goal.

Marketers use tag lines to catch people s attention to their offerings. Remember the famous Coca Cola tagline always coca cola? Tag lines are short keywords and phrases that are easy to remember. Create a tagline for your goal.

For example, if you want to save for a vacation and you need to reduce your vending machine spending, you can create a tagline like, vending machine vacation. Print out a number of cards with your tagline and put them in places where your can see your tagline all the time.

The phrase in a tag line itself is not that important. What is important is the emotional attachment to the tagline. Speak out your tagline whenever you are alone, e.g. during driving, while taking a shower, etc.

3. Always day dream the success of completing your goal.

As bad as it sounds, it is a very powerful tool. Once you get immersed in your day dreams, start developing emotional feelings about it. Make plans for all the things you are going to do once you have achieved your goal.

For example, plan for what you are going to do in your vacation, look around for dresses that you want to buy once you have lost those pounds, or open a new saving account where you want to put the extra money once you start reducing the number of cigarettes you smoke.

4. Start a blog.

Personal blog is an excellent way to record your goals, intermediate successes and failures. Google offers a free blog platform called blogger. Create an account for the blogger service and start recording your goals, why you want to pursue it, what is holding you back and your feelings when you achieve success.

Start reading a few self improvement blogs, post comments on those blogs, and share links to those blogs in your own posts. You will get lots of good ideas and insights from others blogs and receive tips and encouragements from readers feedbacks in your own blog. Your blog will motivate others to take actions. You can also earn money from Google s AdSense program.

5. Create a facebook group and invite others to join you in setting and achieving goals together.

This is a new type of social support group using social media. You will learn from each others and share information to keep everybody on track. Publish your blog posts and other interesting and informative posts from other blogs in your facebook group.

To achieve your goal, you have to take small bites one at a time and measure your success regularly. You need to get engaged and develop emotional attachment to your goals. Online tools like blogs and facebook groups help you develop passions and share them with others.

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Commitment Moves You In The Direction of Your Goals

If you want to live a dream life, not only must you decide what you want, turn your dream into measurable goals, break those goals down into specific action steps, and visualize and affirm your desired outcomes – you must start taking action!

I recommend making the commitment to do something every day in at least three different areas of your life that moves you in the direction of your goal. If one of your goals is physical fitness, make a commitment to do some sort of exercise – aerobics, weight training, stretching – four to five times a week for a minimum of twenty minutes.

I read recently that if you simply go for a 30 minute walk four times a week, that would put you in the top 1% of those people getting physical exercise! If your goal is financial independence, start saving and investing a portion of your income every month with no exceptions. If your goal is to write a book, write for a minimum of one hour every day.

Don’t Let Fear Stop You
Most people never get what they want because they let their fears stop them. They are afraid of making a mistake, looking foolish, getting ripped off, being rejected, being hurt, wasting their time, and feeling uncomfortable.

Fear is self-created by imagining catastrophic consequences that have yet to happen. It is all in your mind. In fact, you can actually scare yourself by imagining negative and harmful images. But simply stop the catastrophic thoughts and images, and the fear goes away.

Rejection is a Myth
One of the biggest fears that stops people from asking for support, guidance, advice, money, a date, a job, the sale, or anything else is the fear of rejection.

In fact, it’s been known to literally paralyze people. They become tongue-tied and refuse to reach for the phone or get up and walk across the room. They break out in a sweat at the mere thought of asking for what they want.

I have come to realize that the whole concept of rejection is false – that rejection doesn’t really exist. Think about it for a moment. If you asked someone to join you for dinner, and they said no, you could tell yourself that you had been rejected. But think about it. Did you have anyone to eat dinner with before you asked them? No! Did you have anyone to eat dinner with after you asked them? No! Did your life really get worse? No. It stayed the same!

Act As If
One of the secrets of success is to start acting like a success before you are one. Act as if. If you had already achieved your dream, what kinds of clothes would you be wearing? How would you act? How would you treat others? Would you tithe a portion of your income to your church or favorite charities? Would you have more self-confidence? Would you take more time to spend with your loved ones?

I suggest that you begin to do those things now!

When I decided that I wanted to be an “international” consultant, I immediately went and applied for a passport, bought an international clock that told me what time it was anywhere in the world, printed business cards with the words “International Self-Esteem and Peak Performance Consultant,” and decided I would like to first go to Australia. I bought a poster of the Sydney Opera House and placed it on my refrigerator.

Within one month, I received an invitation to speak in Sydney and Brisbane. Since then, I have spoken and conducted trainings in over 30 countries and continue to expand my business around the globe.

Start acting as if you already have everything you want.

Most people think that if they have a lot of money, they could do the things they want to do, and they would be much happier. In fact, the reverse is true. If you start by creating a state of happiness and abundance, then do the things you are inspired to do from that state of being, you will end up having all the things you ultimately desire.

Remember, the proper order of this is to start now and be who you want to Be, then Do the actions that go along with being that person, and soon you will find that you can easily Have everything you want in life – health, wealth and fulfilling relationships.

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Jack Canfield, America’s #1 Success Coach, is founder of the billion-dollar book brand Chicken Soup for the Soul and a leading authority on Peak Performance and Life Success. If you’re ready to jump-start your life, make more money, and have more fun and joy in all that you do, get your FREE success tips from Jack Canfield now at: FreeSuccessStrategies.com

Track Your Progress to Achieve Your Goals

If you’re recently set some goals for leading a healthier lifestyle, you’ll have a greater chance for success if you track that progress.

Shira Capellini, a health services researcher says self-monitoring or keeping a wellness journal is very important.

“Research has shown that self-monitoring, or keeping track, is key to achieving your goals no matter what they are,” she said. “Whether it’s monitoring your sleeping patterns or trying to move more or just getting more fruits and vegetables, awareness is so important because if you don’t know where to the areas are that you need to improve, then it’s harder to figure out where to start.”

There are plenty of things you can keep track of in your wellness journal.

“You certainly want to identify what your goals are and then keep track of things that pertain to those goals, whether they’re improving your health or weight loss, and write down more than you think that you need to,” Capellini said. “Things like not just what you’re eating but how much are you eating, what times of day, how do you feel when you’re eating those foods, when are you exercising, how do you feel when you’re exercising, if you’re taking medication, how do you feel after you take your medication.

“You can also include things like how much sleep you’re getting, how do you feel when you wake up in the morning, and how much water you’re drinking.”

Make sure you keep your journal with you and write things throughout the day. If we leave it up to ourselves to write everything down at night, we’ll forget.

Achieving total body wellness does not happen overnight; it takes baby steps, so start with whatever you’re comfortable writing down. You can always build from there.

It’s also a great idea to share your wellness journal if you’re working with a nutritionist, personal trainer or physician.

– Check out how GoalsOnTrack can help you track and achieve your goals!

Perseverance: When You Master this Tool, Your Goal Setting Success will Soar

By Colin Dunbar

“Life is not easy for any of us. We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.” - Marie Curie

Perseverance is not rocket science. You can master this goal setting tool, with just a little thinking and concentration. Think about the thing you want to do, focus your efforts on the smaller steps and you will be amazed at what you can achieve.

In real terms, perseverance is a matter of doing something step-by-step. When we have confidence in what we do, perseverance can become a habit. And it is a good habit worth having.

When you consider a world class athlete, perseverance is essential in his or her performance.

As Madam Curie said, “life is not easy”, but life is here to be lived, and when we use the right tools, it can be exciting. Using this quote as a daily affirmation is an excellent goal setting tool.

When we “believe that we are gifted for something”, as Curie said, our energy levels rise astronomically. When you attain success at the smaller things, your level of confidence rises proportionally.

The dictionary defines perseverance as “maintain effort”. Thus perseverance is nothing more than taking it step-by-step. Even the smallest steps will result in success.

Take it one step at a time, and you will be amazed at what you can achieve.

Make it your goal to…

Identify what you are passionate about. When you know what your passion is, you will find the energy to develop perseverance. And when you become tired, take time out - take a break - you will find you become recharged.

10 Steps to Creating Monday Momentum

By Jill Koenig

1. Decide in advance that you are going to have a great
week.

Your attitude determines your altitude and it starts right here with the decision. Expect success, expect the best, and be prepared to invest the very best of yourself in everything you do.

2. Define Success more clearly.

Envision exactly what it means to have a great week. Does success mean productivity? Fun? Speed? Quality? Progress? Completion? What elements do you need to create in order to realize your vision this week?

3. Map out your week on Sunday evening.

At first this may seem challenging but after a few tries, you will be in awe of how easy it is to set yourself up for success. Here are some questions to get you started: What are your priorities for the week? What are the essentials you absolutely must accomplish and in what order of importance? What do you
need to do this week to meet your Goals for the month, for the year?

4. Schedule your actions and priorities into your calendar
so that you know when you will do them.

5. Create measures of accountability.

Are you motivated by pain or pleasure? Does it light a fire under your posterior to know there is a fun reward at the finish line for doing what you promised or are you more motivated by the pain of
having to pay for NOT doing it? Determine your own personal rewards you will enjoy for following through on your commitments and what penalties can you impose on yourself if you don’t? Bring in a friend or peers for extra reinforcement. Having someone to hold you accountable will keep you honest and give you an extra edge. There is nothing like succeeding or failing in front of an audience. You can raise the bar on this as high as you need to.

6. Go to bed early Sunday evening.

Stretch or meditate prior to bedtime. You will feel more rested when you wake up and you will have energy, vigor and enthusiasm to begin your day. There’s nothing as energizing and momentum
building as arising with clarity, getting a jump on the day and being ahead of schedule, rather than feeling like you’re behind schedule or playing catch up.

7. On Monday morning rise a little earlier, get in a quick
workout

Even if it’s just a 15 minute walk or ride on the exercise bike. Wake up your brain and get those endorphins flowing. You will burn more fat, feel GREAT and get it out of the way so you’re free to move on to other things.

8. Eat a healthy breakfast.

This will provide you with the fuel to tackle your top priorities. (planning your week in advance means planning your meals in advance if you want to be super productive, energized and stay away from fast
foods, which are a huge energy drain) What you put into your mouth has a direct effect on your productivity, efficiency and mental clarity.

9. Listen to one hour of an empowering audio program

while you’re working out and eating breakfast. This will help you with the mental motivation and get you going with the right attitude. I recommend http://www.TheTimeCommandments.com

10. At the end of each day and the end of each week, review
what you did or didn’t do.

Make adjustments where necessary and keep building on your strengths and celebrating your
successes. Have fun and remember that small improvements add up over time. Imagine how much more clarity, motivation and achievement you will experience after growing and improving consistently for 52 weeks!

Momentum breeds momentum.

Unleashing these powerful strategies will condition you to seize the day every day. You will condition yourself to know where you are going, get moving and you will have all the motivation and Momentum you need to carry you through the week.

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Jill Koenig, the “Goal Guru” is America’s Top Goal Strategist. A best selling Author, Coach and Motivational Speaker, she is an expert on the subjects of Goal Setting, Time Management and Business Success. Her Goal in life is to help you UNLEASH your untapped potential. Learn cutting edge
Goal Strategies at http://www.GoalGuru.com

Achieve Your Goals by Focusing on Critical Activities

By Danny Gamache

What are your critical activities? Critical activities are those activities that directly move you towards your goals.  Every goal has critical activities.  The problem is that most of us spend significant amounts of time doing things that are not critical.  Often we convince ourselves that they are something we ‘need’ to do to be successful, but usually they are things that are not critical.

Step 1 – Identify your goals

You can’t know what the critical activities are if you don’t first have a clear understanding of what your goals are.  You need to understand where you are going before you can know how to get there. Go beyond just labeling something as your goal, get a grip on WHY you want to achieve your goal.  Before you plan how to get to your vacation destination you first need to know where you are going and what you want to do when you get there.  Your destination is your goal, and what you want to do when you get there is your WHY.

Step 2 – List major outcomes needed to achieve your goal

For each goal make a list of the outcomes that you need to complete in order reach that goal. These outcomes should be the major results that lead to achieving your goals.  You may view these as the steps along the way, or the main accomplishments needed to move you forward.  If your goal is to increase your coaching business your major outcomes will be finding new clients and keeping your existing clients.  These would be the two major outcomes that if you continue to do will certainly help you achieve your over arching goal.

Step 3 – Determine the activities needed

In this step you need to take your outcomes from step #2 and break them down into all of the activities that are needed to get you to those outcomes.  There are likely several activities needed for each outcome. These can be broken down into small bite sized action chunks.  Continuing with the goal of expanding your coaching business, you would list all the activities for each of the two major outcomes.  For example for finding new clients you would have things such as building your prospect list, networking, phoning potential prospects, increasing your web presence, offering seminars or podcasts etc…  Think through all the things you do to move you towards each major outcome.

Step 4 – Limit the list to the critical activities

Once you have your list of activities you need to reduce the list to only those activities that are absolutely critical for achieving your goals.  These are the things that must be done.  To find out if one of the activities you have recorded is critical or not, ask yourself what would happen if you stopped doing it. If you quit doing one of the critical activities you will quit moving towards your goals.  If you quit something that is not critical you may miss it but it won’t prevent you from reaching your goals.  Often the critical activities are not the easy activities.  They require stepping out of your comfort zone.  For each goal you should aim to have between 4 and 8 critical activities.

Step 5 – Take action on the critical.

After you have identified the critical activities you need to take action on those activities.  Reduce the time and focus you give to the non-critical activities. By now you have likely realized that some things you spend time on are not critical.  Non critical activities for me include cleaning my office, surfing the web endlessly, communicating with friends on Facebook etc..  Certainly there are times where these activities are appropriate and even needed, however that is not when I am working towards my goals.  When you have set aside time to focus on your business or other goals only do critical activities.   To do this you may need to block out distractions.  This might mean closing your email boxes, shutting of your twitter tweets, and perhaps even turning off the ringer on your phone.  Get rid of the non-critical things that might distract you from the critical.

Step 6 – Do this for each goal

Likely you will have more than one goal in your life.  You may have business goals, work goals, family goals, fitness goals etc.  For each goal area you can work through this process. If your goal is to lose you may identify the major outcomes of eating better and exercising more.  From there your critical activities might be: 1. exercise daily  2. cook better meals 3. measure our your servings 4. record everything you eat.   Every area of your life has critical activities and time wasters.

By taking the time to work through these steps you can focus on the critical and avoid the time wasters.  You will make more progress towards your goals more quickly.

10 Ways to Achieve your Goals Quicker

Found through Be Excellent Blog, recently ThinkTQ.com announced the results of 2005 Goals Study. They considered 10 important key actions that once taken will make you closer to the goal. They also compiled how often and well people take these action items. The key actions are pretty neat. The results are shocking:

- Make all your dreams real by first identifying and then focusing on specific, tangible targets for what you want.
- Maintain at least one clearly defined goal for every major interest and role in your life.
- Set your goals so they are directly aligned with your life’s mission, purpose and passion.
- Create goals high enough to ignite your spirit and inspire you to take action.
- Write down all your goals in specific, measurable detail.
- Absolutely, unconditionally commit to hitting each of your targets.
- Share your goals with others for mutual accomplishment.
- Set a whole series of related daily, weekly and long-term goals, complete with starting times and completion dates.
- Take 10 minutes every day to imagine how terrific it will feel when your goals are actually realized.
- Take an action step toward the attainment of at least one goal every day.

In their sample size of 32,896 users who took the survey, the results are not promising. Only a maximum of 33% users consistently take the action item. Maybe most of them do not know how to achieve their goals, or they never plan their goals. Without a way to walk closer to your goal, you will only be dreaming about the achievement. You have to be a dreamer as well as a doer to taste the achievement in reality.

100 Terrific Web Tools for Meeting Your Personal and Career Goals

There seem to be so many web sites or tools that you can use for all kinds of things nowadays. But do you know which of them are the best and most easy to use. especially for college students?

Here is a list for 100 web tools for meeting your personal career goals, compiled by the friends at Online College Blog. Check it out here. (Thanks for including goalsontrack.com on your list too, Kelly!)

How to Effectively Track and Accomplish Your Goals

One of the most common reasons that people don’t get to accomplish their goals is that we tend to get distracted, and we lose track of important things that need to be done consistently in order to move forward towards our goals. Maybe you have set a perfectly achievable goal and planned every detailed step, but without effectively tracking your goal and knowing your progress, most certainly you will get discouraged when the first obstacle gets in the way and end up giving up on your goal eventually.

To really achieve any goal worthwhile, we need to discipline ourselves to keep it on track until it’s accomplished. There are several ways to effectively track your goals.

1. Review your goals regularly, preferably daily

Keep yourself constantly reminded of your goals by reviewing them at a specific time each day. It can be in the morning, first thing after you get out of the bed. It can be at night just before you go to sleep. Write down all your goals in a notebook, or store them in a computer software. When you review them, envision how accomplishing that goal will make you feel. Check your current progress, understand what you did to move it forward, find out what else you still need to do. By doing this regularly, you train your mind to become alert to things that  are related to your goals, and gradually your mind will automatically guide you to do whatever needed to achieve them.

2. Break down a goal into actionable steps

Many people tend to easily get overwhelmed by all the things they need to do to accomplish a goal. The trick is to break down a bigger goal into smaller actionable steps. For example, say your goal is to start your own business. There are many things you will need to do. But before spending too much time on thinking about how difficult or time consuming they will be, first break things down a bit. For instance, obviously first few steps towards your goal could be: decide an overall direction or business model, find a right product/service to sell, list requirements to make this product/service work, etc. If any of these steps still looks big, break it down further. Once you break it down to doable steps, all you need to focus on is just one small step. As long as you keep doing these small steps, the completion of the goal will take care of itself.

3. Break down a goal into quantifiable results

For some goals, it may not be easy to know what exactly the steps are to get started. How are you still able to keep track of your progress? One method is to find a measurable aspect of your goal, and write it down as a number. For example, your goal could be to lose weight, then the number is your body weight. If you want to finish reading or studying a book, the number is the number of pages to read. If your goal is to save money for a dream vocation, the number is the amount of money you put in a bank account. As long as you know what this number is, you will always know your progress. All that’s left is just to keep doing things that help you move that number closer to your goal’s end result, and stop doing what doesn’t change the number.

4. Track a goal by the amount of time you spend on it

There are certain kind of goals that can’t be easily broken down to definitive steps. It is often difficult to find any obvious measurable aspects for their end result. They can be goals, such as, stay in shape, have a peaceful mind, become more fluent in a foreign language, etc. For this type of goals, you can try tracking the amount of time you spend on doing things required by them. For instance, to stay in shape, track how many hours you work out per week. For having a peaceful mind, track how much time you spend meditating, or doing yoga per day. For becoming fluent in a foreign language, track how much time you spend practicing speaking the language per day. So on and so forth.

No matter what type of goals you set, you should always find something to track its progress. The benefit of doing this is that you will always know whether you are making progress or not. If you are, you will feel encouraged and become confident that your goal is reachable. If you aren’t, you will know immediately that what you are doing isn’t working for you, and it isn’t moving you any closer to your goal. Then you adjust your plan and find something else to try, until you have found the right way to do things that will eventually achieve your goal.

Setting and achieving your goal shouldn’t be that hard once you have learnt how to effectively track your progress. All you need to remember is to review your goals regularly, break things down into manageable steps, make it measurable and finally track your time working on your goals. Once you have mastered to do these things, you can accomplish anything you want.

Try out web app GoalsOnTrack to track and manage your goals!