The internet is packed with “How to goals guides”, and yet I didn’t want to make another one. The reason is simple; unless your goal is meaningful, you hardly will achieve it.
Meaningful goals create a meaningful life
Just a little story here. Back in 2012, I set goals for the next five years. I thought I needed some direction. One of the goals was to increase my yearly income every year, and it was quite aggressive. Back then, I was still employed as Chef, so was natural to set a goal to get a promotion after promotion.
One of the goals was to increase my yearly income, and it was quite aggressive. Back then, I was still employed as Chef, so it was natural to seek a promotion and consequentially see my income increase.
Not only this goal was unrealistic, but it was meaningless to me. I wasn’t happy to work for someone else, I had enough to serve guests, I had enough to work longgggggg hours. I wanted to make more money to improve my financial future, but what I really wanted the most was FREEDOM.
I didn’t examine my motivations closely, It was just another numerical goal. I don’t need to say that I never achieved that goal.
So, it’s important to set meaningful goals because only goals with a strong meaning keep you going when things get tough.
There may be times, for example, you don’t feel like waking up early to work on your goals. That happen to everyone. But if you have a reason, something you really want to accomplish because it means a lot to you, you’ll run out of bed with excitement.
I believe in setting goals in life to achieve greatness, and if you do that, you’re going to live a rich life. I also believe you should set simple goals. In fact, I advocate one goal at the time instead than multiple which are required a complicated system to keep track.
Focus your energy on a small number of goals, making you more effective.
In today post I’m going to show you step by step how to set meaningful goals so you can achieve greatness in personal life and business.
Here’s what I recommend:
1# SET ONE GOAL PER TIME
We get stuck in life because we want to achieve one zillion things. Unfortunately, we hardly achieve any if don’t unclutter our life.
According to Health.com, multitasking isn’t efficient as we like to believe, and can even be harmful to our health. You cannot maintain energy and focus if you are trying to do two or more goals at once.
Most people would say that having just one goal is impossible for them. I have two solutions:
- You can still to other goals, but put them off for one or more months for now. Focus on one goal for at least one month, turn it into a habit, then move to your next goal.
- Do more than a goal but keep them very simple. You don’t want to spread yourself too fine. Risking to fail any goal can be demoralizing leading to a lack of self-esteem. You want to set goals to improve your life, not to sabotage it.
2# VISUALIZE YOUR GOAL
The better you can visualize your goal, the easier will be.
Arnold Schwarzenegger stresses the importance to visualize goals in life. Arnold’s clarity is incredible. His goals were precise and concise. At the age of 15, Arnold visualized his goals:
I want to be the best built man in the world. Then I want to go to America and be in movies. I want to be an actor. – Arnold Schwarzenegger
If you don’t know much about Arnold’s life, at the age of 15 he was living in Austria and couldn’t speak any English. Imagine his friends listening to his goals. They might have thought he was crazy. Be sure it’s something you’re passionate about, or you’ll lose motivation.
Instead, Arnold shows the world the power of visualizing crystal clear goals in life. You can achieve anything, even what seems impossible.
You can do it!
3# THINK ABOUT THE STEPS TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOAL
Here you need to put on your plan cup.
Can the goal be achieved with a series of actions? Like 1-4 daily or weekly tasks. For example, to be a successful blogger, you’ll need to write a post every day. Throughout regular actions, eventually, the goal will be accomplished.
If your goal will take more than one month to be accomplished, break it down in smaller subgoals.
4# THINK ABOUT DETAILS
Writing an article every day isn’t going to make you a successful blogger. But writing 800-3000 words article everyday, and also post at least 2 times per month on someone else blog while writing quality articles, should make you a star.
Write down each action you need to accomplish to achieve the goal. Be specific.
5# SET A DEADLINE
Without explicitly set an expectation to achieve the desired goal, most likely you will get lost along the way. So, “When your goal will be accomplished?”. An example; I want to be a successful blogger in one year time from today.
6# STAY FOCUS
Focus on the action for a whole month to create a habit. One habit per time. The first month, write every day an article without bothering about other details. On the second month, write every day an article between 800-3000 words long. And so on… You get me?
7# GO IN AUTOPILOT
Here the sweet part; once all the habits are ingrained, your goal is on autopilot. That means no more struggle or sweating to write a blog post.
Instead, you will feel writing to be natural like having breakfast each morning.
WHEN TO SET GOALS?
There is no perfect answer here. If you haven’t written a list of goals yet, the BEST time is now. Once you get started, make sense to create yearly goals while breaking them down into monthly goals.
Monthly goals help to accomplish your long-term goals, and at the same time to review your progress. I think, progress it’s important as much as setting goals.
Every end of the month, I review my personal and financial goals. And of course, on the end of the year, I take a full day to go throughout the big goals.
Keep focused on your goals, and put all your energy into achieving them. Don’t let obstacles to unfocus you from your journey. Keep in sight the horizon, you’ll get there.
What are your thoughts? How are you setting meaningful goals?
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