Four KEY STEPS to Achieve Your Goals

By Abel Pagaling

You might be familiar with these lines from Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass:

“Would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way to go,” said the Cat

Like Alice, many people suffer from lack of direction. There is no clear goal to pursue. Life’s hours are wasted on useless activities. Days turn to weeks, weeks to months, and months to years. Twenty years later, you look back in your life and ask, “What have I done with my productive years?”

The reality today is that valuable time is wasted on media “programming”. Television and surfing the net has taken over many people’s daily lives. The time that should be spent on learning and personal development is consumed on feel good, mind-numbing entertainment that adds no value at all. This prevents many from achieving their full potential. It is a self-imposed demotion of the mind’s potential for greatness.

No wonder many people feel lost and unhappy. They are not working at their full capacity. With each day that passes, the potential to be great slowly fades away.

Thankfully, we humans have a God-given gift to change our behavior. We can learn, become better, do things smarter, and achieve fantastic results that no other species on the planet can match.

With determination, courage, and confidence, you can achieve great things.

It all starts with a having a GOAL.

Here are four key steps to effective goal setting:

Begin with the END in mind

The great Steven Covey talks about this in his book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People.

Before you start anything, picture what you want to accomplish in the end. It’s similar to building a house. Plan and draw the house before you even dig for the foundations. It other words, begin with the end in mind.

Spend some time visualizing your goals. In your mind, see what you want to achieve. The bigger the goal, the more time you should think about it to get a clear picture of how it will look like in the end. The clearer you are about what you want to achieve, the easier it is to plan and do your work to get there.

“PDD” – Planning, Details and Deadlines

Once you know what it is you would like to achieve, set the activities that will get you there. Be specific. Be as detailed as possible for each activity and set a firm deadline to keep you on track.

Planned activities that are open-ended are moving targets that never gets done. These become sources of frustration. If you have too many open-ended activities, start prioritizing by adding deadlines.

Deadlines are what make goals important. It gives you a sense of urgency to act and forces you to focus on what you need to do.

Execute as per plan

Once you have the details and deadlines in place, it’s time to do the work. This is where the rubber hits the road. A plan is nothing more than a detailed wish list if it is not carried out.

Do the work as per your plan. When you start, keep the momentum going. Work smart and work hard! This is when deadlines become critical because it keeps you focused on what needs to be accomplished and when.

Remember this quote:

~Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven’t planted~ David Bly

Learn and Improve

Always take the time to reflect and ask yourself, “what have I learned and what do I need to improve?”

This is really about your personal growth. Constant learning and improvement are what turns a normal person into a great one. Top athletes constantly evaluate their performance. They have coaches and support staff to help them “see” how they can improve their game. You can adopt this mindset. Start by doing a weekly review of your performance. Give yourself a score out of 100 each week. Do a quick assessment:

-What have I achieved?

-What did I do well?

-What can I improve?

Set goals for yourself. Be on top of your game. Don’t be like Alice in Wonderland. Have a goal to pursue. Remember, life with no direction is a pointless life. That’s what makes people unhappy.