It would help if you were specific about what you want to accomplish to achieve your goals. You should break down the steps to attain that goal into manageable chunks. Next, look at the big picture of how each step will contribute to your overall success. Set a date for when you want to achieve each step or milestone in reaching your goal. Gain the support of others who can help hold you accountable (and cheer you on). Give yourself permission to fail and learn from mistakes along the way—and create contingency plans in case things don’t work out exactly as planned.
Be Specific
Before you can achieve your goal, you need to define it. And when determining your goal, specificity is critical. A vague goal, such as, “I want to get better at art,” isn’t specific enough to work with. Instead, make sure your goals are clear and concise by focusing on the result you’re trying to achieve. This means that instead of saying, “I’ll draw more,” say, “I’ll be able to draw this particular character by next month.” Or instead of saying, “I want my portfolio ready for spring,” say something along the lines of “My portfolio will have five completed pieces.”
Break It Down
Breaking down a goal into smaller tasks is essential to achieving it. For example, if your goal is to write a book by the end of this year, how do you break that goal down? First, you must determine the type of book: fiction or non-fiction, children’s or adult fiction/non-fiction. Then, once you have an idea of the genre and target audience (age), determine some necessary steps required to complete the task at hand (for example, outline plans for each chapter while considering how many pages per chapter would be appropriate).
Once this has been decided and committed to paper (or typed up digitally), write each chapter individually until it is finished! This method helps greatly because now, instead of tackling such an enormous task all at once without any direction, you can do something small like writing just one paragraph instead.
Look at the Big Picture.
The first step in achieving your goals is to look at the big picture. Instead of focusing on details that might seem insignificant, take a moment to consider what you want to achieve and why this is important.
Next, think about why it’s difficult for you to achieve your goals. Is it because they’re too overwhelming or intimidating? If so, break them down into smaller steps to help keep things manageable and more achievable. If you’re having trouble staying motivated, remember that other people aren’t necessarily doing better than you—and even if they are doing better, there’s no reason why they should stop there! Don’t compare yourself with others; focus on yourself and what makes sense for YOU.
Set a Date
To set the date, you must first decide when you want to achieve your goal. Please don’t make it too far in the future, but don’t go for something so easy it will be a breeze to perform. You want it to be sufficiently challenging that you feel motivated and driven by urgency and determination. If your goal is weight loss, for example, maybe aim for losing 5 pounds in two months or 15 pounds in six months—but not both at once!
Choose one option. Once you hit your target, the motivation may die or disappear entirely because nothing is left to do except stop dieting now (which leads back to our previous problem).
Get Support
You’re not alone! Get support from friends and family, a coach or mentor, or a group with similar goals. Ask yourself:
- Who can I turn to when I need help?
- Who can provide me with accountability and motivation?
- Is someone else who has struggled like me and can advise me on overcoming obstacles (or at least share their experiences with me)?
Even if you don’t have anyone like that yet, it’s okay—you won’t be doing this alone forever.
Permit Yourself to Fail.
The first step to achieving any goal is to permit yourself to fail. Otherwise, you’ll never start. Failure can be scary, but it’s also essential to learning and growing. If you’re afraid to fail at something, you’ll probably not try new things or take risks that might lead you down a different path than your current one.
It may seem counterintuitive to say this, but permitting yourself to fail increases your chances of success! You may think that if something doesn’t work out well for you the first time (or even the second), it must mean that this particular thing isn’t suitable for your life: maybe there are other things out there.
But when we permit ourselves not only for failure but also for experimentation and exploration—and allow ourselves room for setbacks and mistakes along the way—we open ourselves up more fully than ever possible toward new opportunities and potential disappointments. The key here is learning how best to utilize these inevitable setbacks, making them positive rather than allowing them to drag us down emotionally or exhaust us mentally and emotionally.
Create a Contingency Plan for Failure.
When setting goals, prepare for what happens when you don’t achieve them. To do this, create a contingency plan for failure. This can consist of: What happens if you fail? Are there other ways that the same goal can be achieved?
If not, maybe that goal wasn’t worthwhile and should be adjusted or scrapped altogether. If so, how does one go about achieving the original purpose differently? Is there an alternative goal more likely to succeed than the original one?
Delegate Tasks, Don’t Micromanage
You can’t do everything yourself. If you try to, you will fail. You need to delegate tasks to others and trust them with your vision. Find the right people for the job.
A project manager should be able to make recommendations based on their experience and expertise on resources available at your workplace.
If there isn’t anyone like that available, consider hiring someone temporarily, such as a virtual assistant, or asking friends interested in doing extra work on an independent contractual basis.
You also need to trust the people you delegate tasks to—even if they aren’t perfect fits for their roles. Give them a chance before assuming that their skills are too different from yours (or worse yet—that they’re incompetent). We often judge others by ourselves: if something seems challenging, we assume it would be impossible for someone else. If something comes naturally or easily for us, we believe everyone else should be able to figure this out equally well! However, this assumption is often wrong—and can lead to self-defeatism. We imagine that no one has what it takes until proven otherwise!
You can Achieve Your Goals!
- Set your goals
- Break your goals down into smaller tasks
- Prioritize your tasks
- Set deadlines for each task
- Gain support for your goals, if necessary
- Permit yourself to fail, if necessary
Conclusion: How to Achieve Your Goals?
So what are you waiting for? Set your goals and get to work! If you follow the steps above, you’ll be able to achieve all your goals with ease.
3 Key Takeaways
Here are three key takeaways from this article:
- Setting SMART goals is essential for achievement. SMART goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. The article emphasizes the importance of defining your goals clearly and breaking them down into smaller steps.
- Having a support system can increase your chances of success. This could include friends, family, a coach, or a group with similar goals. These people can encourage and hold you accountable.
- It’s important to embrace failure as part of the learning process. Don’t let fear of failure prevent you from taking risks and trying new things. The article encourages you to create a contingency plan for failure to adjust your approach if needed.