It seems like just yesterday that it was the beginning of 2015 and it was time to set goals for the year. Now nearly a month in it’s time to begin focusing on reviewing your goals. Have you made progress so far?
We all start off the year with such great intentions for the year to come. Most people make resolutions to achieve things each year that they have wanted to achieve the year before (or in some cases for many years). The problem is that most people never make any progress on their resolutions. In fact many people give up on their resolutions by the end of January.
As I discussed in my earlier post 5 Steps to Setting Effective Goals, the key to achieving your goals is to write them down! But you can’t just stop there. Once you have them written down you need to break them into manageable steps.
Over the years I have had a handful of goals that I have put in writing, but failed to break into steps that I can take action on. I can tell you that each time I have made very little, or zero, progress on these goals. No matter how much time I spent focusing on how much I wanted to achieve the result, my failure to take the steps necessary caused me to fail at achieving my goal.
Now that we are one month through the new year it’s time to look at your goals and ask yourself the question, “How much progress have I made?”
If your answer is that you have not made as much progress as you hoped to by this point, my guess is that you have not broken your goal down into manageable steps. Or that you have failed to focus on the steps, instead choosing to focus on your desired destination.
If you want to have success with any goal you need to break it into manageable steps and focus on those steps, not the outcome.
2 Critical Actions to Acheiving Any Goal:
- Break your goal down into manageable steps. No matter how big your goal is, it begins with a single action. It is important to break your goal down into as many manageable steps as possible.
- Focus on the steps. Most people approach goals by deciding on an outcome and then continually comparing their current situation to the desired outcome. But doing so doesn’t help you get there. Focus instead on each step it will take to get there and wether or not you have achieved that step. No matter how many times you stare at the scale you won’t see your desired weight unless you take steps to eat right and workout.
I once heard someone say the no farmer has ever been surprised by the crop that he harvests. If you plant corn, you will harvest corn. If you don’t plan anything, you won’t harvest anything. It would be useless for a farmer to stand in his field hoping to see crops that he knows he never planted.
Your goals are the exact same. If you never take the steps to get to where you want to be then there’s no purpose in focusing on your desired outcome. Focus on the steps that it will take to get there and I can guarantee you that you’ll get closer to your desired destination than you ever have before.
If you want to lose weight, focus on what you eat and how much you workout. If you want to make more money, focus on how hard you work and how many connections you make. If you want to have a better relationship, focus on the amount of time that you spend with the other person.
The steps you take determine your destination. It’s time to start focusing on them!
Question: What is the very next step you can take to achieve your goal? Join in on the conversation on Facebook or Twitter!
