How to Never Quit on Our Goals
The number one reason that people don’t get to accomplish any goal is that we quit. This sounds so obvious but many of us don’t seem to realize it when we set out to achieve a goal. When we set a goal, do we ask ourselves, “Will I quit before the goal is accomplished?”
I think that that is the most important question we can ask ourselves before we set any goals. If our answer is not a 100% no, then we’re really not ready and will most likely to quit. Any worthy goals that we want to accomplish, whether it’s to lose weight, stay in shape, become rich, start new business, etc., they all require some level of discipline and resolution from us. Otherwise it’d be so easy that we wouldn’t need to bother setting goals. If we don’t discipline ourselves and give the necessary level of commitment to a goal, it’s almost certain that we will never get to achieve it. In another words, we’re just not serious enough.
But how do we make sure that we will never quit on our goals? One key method is that we need to understand a simple fact about goal achievement, which is that keep trying IS making progress. Often the most likely time when we decide to quit on a goal is when we don’t see any progress, even though we may be still trying hard to make it happen. If we don’t see much progress, we get frustrated and discouraged, and this can very easily lead to less trying, which results in even less progress, and we get more discouraged. So it turns into a vicious cycle until to a point where we simply give up on a goal.
The way to break this bad pattern is to change our belief and keep in mind that our keep trying is making progress. When looking back on a goal we accomplished before, we often see that at certain point when we were not making much progress on the surface, we still kept at it and we finally came through. Those things that we did that might not seemingly make any progress are indeed part of the entire process, without them we’d never have accomplished that goal. That’s why people say that setbacks and failures are just stepping-stones on the path to the ultimate success.
Therefore, remember that the only requirement for achieving any worthwhile goal is simply to never quit, never give up. We only need to remind ourselves that as long as we are still trying, we ARE making progress. As long as we’re making progress, what goal can’t we achieve?
Top 10 Best Ideas For Setting Goals
By Hilton Johnson
You cannot pick up a book or participate in a training program today without the author or instructor teaching the power of goal setting. Yet, most people today spend more time planning a two-week vacation than planning their lives by setting goals. It’s been said that achieving goals is not a problem–it’s SETTING goals that is the problem. People just don’t do it. They leave their lives to chance…and usually end up broke by the time they reach retirement.
I thought that since this is such an important ingredient for developing a successful network marketing business, this was a good time to share with you some of the greatest thoughts about goal setting that I’ve discovered over the years.
So, here goes…The Top 10 Best Ideas For Setting Goals:
1. Make A List Of Your Values
What’s really important to you? Your family? Your religion? Your leisure time? Your hobbies? Decide on what your most important values in life are and then make sure that the goals you set are designed to include and enhance them.
2. Begin With The End In Mind
Tom Watson, the founder of IBM was once asked what he attributed the phenomenal success of IBM to and he said it was three things:
The first thing was that he created a very clear image in his mind of what he wanted his company to look like when it was done. He then asked himself how would a company like that have to act on a day-to-day basis. And then in the very beginning of building his company, he began to act that way.
3. Project Yourself Into The Future
The late, great Earl Nightingale created a whole new industry (self-improvement) after a 20-year study on what made people successful. The bottom-line result of his research was simply, “We Become What We Think About.”
Whatever thoughts dominate our minds most of the time are what we become. That’s why goal setting is so critical in achieving success because it keeps us focused on what’s really important to us. He then said that the easiest way to reach our goals is to pretend that we had ALREADY achieved our goals.
That is, begin to walk, talk and act as though we are already experiencing the success we seek. Then, those things will come to us naturally through the power of the subconscious mind.
4. Write Down The 10 Things You Want This Year
By making a list of the things that are important to you, you begin to create images in your mind. It’s been said that your mind will actually create chaos if necessary to make images become a reality. Because of this, the list of ten things will probably result in you achieving at least eight of them within the year.
5. Create Your Storyboard
Get a piece of poster board and attach it to a wall in your office or home where you will see it often. As you go through magazines, brochures, etc. and you see the pictures of the things you want, cut them out and glue them to your storyboard.
In other words, make yourself a collage of the goals that excite you…knowing full well that as you look at them everyday, they will soon be yours.
6. The Three Most Important Things
Decide on three things that you want to achieve before you die. Then work backwards listing three things you want in the next twenty years, ten years, five years, this year, this month, this week and finally, the three most important things you want to accomplish today.
7. Ask Yourself Good Questions
As you think about your goals, instead of WISHING for them to come true, ask yourself HOW and WHAT CAN YOU DO to make them come true. The subconscious mind will respond to your questions far greater than just making statements or making wishes.
8. Focus On One Project At A Time
One of the greatest mistakes people make in setting goals is trying to work on too many things at one time. There is tremendous power in giving laser beam focused attention to just one idea, one project or one objective at a time.
9. Write Out An “Ideal Scenario”
Pretend that you are a newspaper reporter that has just finished an interview about the outstanding success that you’ve achieved and the article is now in the newspaper. How would it read? What would be the headline? Write the article yourself, projecting yourself into the future as though it had already happened. Describe the activities of your daily routine now that are very successful. Don’t forget the headline. (Example: “Jane Doe Wins Top Network Marketing Award Of The Decade.”)
10. Pray & Meditate
As you get into bed each evening, think about your goal before you drop off to sleep. Get a very clear colorful image in your mind of seeing yourself doing the things you’ll be doing after you’ve reached your major goal. (Remember to include your values.) And then begin to ask and demand for these things through meditation and prayer.
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How to Set SMART Goals and Get Things Done Web 2.0 goal setting and task management software. Vision board, DnD todo lists, goals and time trackers, goal journal, and more. |
Four Simple Ways to Achieve Any Goals You Set
Sometimes it’s relatively easy to set goals, but the hard part is how to really achieve them. Everyone can set a few goals. It’s no big deal to set some goals, such as, to excercise more, to eat right food, to lose weight, to earn more money, to spend more time with family, to learn more etc. But how many of us can honestly say that we have accomplished all the goals we have set for ourselves? Probably only a very few.
Here are several simple tips that can help you really achieve the goals you want to accomplish.
1. Have a strong reason or purpose
Oftentimes we set goals without thinking too much about them. Are those things really what we want? From deep down, you have to ask yourself if a goal or result is really, really something that YOU want, not influenced by someone else, or society, or cultural backgrounds, etc. That is, in order to have the strong emotional support for achieving your goal, you must find a strong reason(s) to convince youself why you want to accomplish that goal, why it is important to you.
It may help by asking yourself such questions as:
“Why do I want it?”
“Why is it important to me?”
“What if I don’t achieve it, why does it matter?”
“What difference does it make if I indeed achieved it?”
By having true answers to these questions that you totally believe in, you will have a solid emotional foundation upon which to lanuch your steps toward actually achieving your goal.
2. Find a meaningful measurement for your goal
One of the common reasons we don’t get to accomplish our goal is because we sometimes get frustrated and disappointed when things don’t go the way we expected. We tend to lose heart and eventually stop trying. A simple and effective solution to this problem is to find a meaningful and realistic measurement for your goal, so that you will know that you are always making progress, no matter what actual results you get.
For example, your goal may be to start a home business to support yourself. Now one thing you can use for measuring your progress is how many tasks or things that you do that moves you forwards on your goal, regardless of whether or not the result of that task or thing turns out to be successful.
Back to the example, you may have researched 3 business ideas, made 5 phone calls to people to seek advice. Even though none of the ideas turns out to be workable, none of calls turns out to be of any help, you ARE still making progress. Because you have done 8 things (5 biz ideas and 5 calls) that moved you forward, and that’s progress, regardless of their actual results.
To accomplish anything worthwhile means experiencing many small successes and failures along the way. So long as you keep going, keep trying, keep making progress, keep working on your goal, you will eventually achieve your goal. It’s that simple.
3. Focus on spending enough time required on your goals
A common pitfall that we tend to fall into is that we don’t spend enough time required by the goal. We tend to underestimate the amount of time it takes to accomplish something we really want. Otherwise we probably wouldn’t have set the goal in the first place if we thought it’d be so hard to accomplish.
We are not quite sure how long it usually takes someone like us to accomplish something similar to what we want to achieve. Until we know, we tend to get impatient when things don’t seem to happen fast enough. We tend to lose heart when we don’t see the results sooner enough. Eventually this kind of impatient state of mind will sabotage our goal.
So if you want to accomplish something but don’t know how long it usually takes other people to do it, go and do some research, get some answers so that you will have a realistic idea. For example, if you want to make one million dollars, go ask people who have done it, how long it took them. Also remember to ask how much time they worked daily on average and the total amount of time they worked until the goal is accomplished.
4. Form a habit of reviewing your goals and plans daily
One thing that can ensure the realization of your goal is to be consistent. You must put consistent effort into doing the action steps that yield the results required by your goal. One simple way to do this, is to form a habit of reviewing your goals and plans everyday. The important thing is to make this into a habit, so that you will never have to remember, to even think about it. Therefore you will never be easily sidetracked.
It usually requires a little effort to form any habit at the first, but once the habit is formed, then you are all set. Try a 30-day habit forming plan. Each day for the next 30 days, force yourself to find time to review your goals and action steps, think about them, and reflect how you’re doing with them, and what you need to do next. Stick to this plan for 30 days, I can assure you that after 30 days, you will do this everyday without having to remind yourself.
We all want to accomplish something that’s important, that matters to ourselves. But we won’t be able to do that without a game plan. By following above mentioned steps, we will always have a plan, something to support us, something to keep us going when things get tough, and eventually we will accomplish any goals we set.
