Oh boy, here comes another article talking about goals and how to set them. Is that what is going through your head right now? If so, you are not alone. We are constantly bombarded with this idea of setting goals and how they can change our lives, but we are never given the right amount of information on how to actually accomplish those goals once they are created.
Did you know that 92% of people that set New Year’s goals don’t actually achieve them? That is a scary number, and probably explains why only a select few people have wealth and knowledge in this world. If you are part of the 92% that wasn’t able to accomplish his or her goals for New Years, or any other goals, then you have come to the right place. Let’s delve into the different types of goals and the six simple steps that will allow you to accomplish any goal you set.
Before we get into that, let’s quickly talk about why goals are actually important. If you read any personal development book, or listen to any millionaire talk about how they became rich, the most common denominator in all of them is goal setting. Even though there are hundreds of reasons why goals are important, here are 4 of the biggest ones that I believe make goals worth it.
1. Goals Keep You on Target
Goals allow a person to stay on target and continue to pursue what it is that they want. Without a target, a person isn’t able to put the trigger and move forward on the right path. For example, how much value does a sniper pose to the team, if he doesn’t have a target to aim at. The sniper is worthless unless he has a specific target and knows who he or she is supposed to aim at. The same goes for everyone else. Without goals, we are just living our lives walking aimlessly among others that don’t have a target to aim at.
2. Goals Help You Find Your Life Goals
Goals will help you achieve your life goals. When people ask you what you have planned for the future, what do you tell them? I don’t know, I guess I’m going to keep working at the same company and hope to get a promotion. Or is it more like this, I want to reach and impact all 7.5 Billion people on this planet through my programs and businesses. (Which is actually one of my life/legacy goals) See the difference between the two? Without goals, you don’t even know what your life goals are, and so you end up wandering aimlessly through life. Only to end up regretting everything you didn’t do on your deathbed.
3. Goals Create a Road Map for Success
Goals can be as huge as reaching 7.5 Billion people, or as small as not eating chocolate for one day. It doesn’t matter how big or small, your goals all add up to bring you a road map of where you are going and how you will get there. Create huge goals, and then create smaller goals that will eventually lead you to becoming the person that is required in order to accomplish that big goal. Think of it as leveling up your character in a video game, except this time you level up by accomplishing your goals in real life.
4. Goals Make You Dream Bigger
Goals are the soul’s way of telling you what you were born to do. People don’t set goals unless they actually want to accomplish them, for whatever reason. Sometimes we set weight goals just because we want to feel more attractive to others. Sometimes it is because of health issues. Whatever they are, they are there for a reason, and once you accomplish them, you feel good. This leads to you wanting to dream even bigger and accomplish even more. For some of you, it could be that you want to train 10 people to get the same results as you. For others it might be to build muscle. Whatever the goal is, dream bigger than the average.
Now that we talked about why goals are important, let’s take a look at how to actually set goals and achieve them. I recommend pulling out a piece of paper right now and going through each step with me. This will not only make more sense, but it will ensure that you actually do it.
1. Decide
The first step may seem like the easiest but honestly it is the hardest. In this step, you are going to think about everything that you want to achieve in your life. This doesn’t mean that things can’t change or that you can’t fix them later, but right now just jot down every goal that you want to accomplish at this moment. An important part of this, is to also make the goal as specific as possible.
This may take you some time if you have never thought about what goals you wanted to achieve before. Don’t let that stop you though, take a deep breath and move to a location without any distractions. From there just close your eyes and just think about what it is that you really want in your life. Make them as big and crazy as you can.
One last point to mention is that your goals should be as huge as possible, as this will motivate you even more. Don’t worry about how you are going to get there or accomplish it, I have no idea how I am going to help 7.5 Billion people, but that is still a goal of mine. Once you have your list of goals made and written down, it is now time to move on to step #2.
2. Set a Timeline
Now that you have all your goals written down, take a look over each one and set a timeline for each one. Be as specific as possible for this part, as the more specific the date, the more likely you are to accomplish it. Now obviously there are some goals that you can’t put a timeline on, for example my goal of reaching 7.5 Billion people is something that will live on after I am long dead. That is what I call a legacy goal, which is a fancy word for saying that this goal will be my legacy for when I am no longer on this planet.
Another example of a goal deadline would be weighing 200 pounds by the end of the year. As you can see, I have a specific goal and a specific deadline to achieving this goal. This will remind me what it is that I have to weight and when it has to be done by. Now that you have a deadline for each goal, let’s move on to step #3.
3. Break it Down
Now it is time to take that list of specific goals and deadlines and break it down into much smaller and more manageable pieces. Start by writing down one of your goals that you have right now and then writing out every other goal and things that you need to have or learn so that you are able to reach your above goal. Once you have them written out, go ahead and write out a whole plan with as much detail and steps as possible. For example, let’s say I want to weigh 200 pounds by the end of the year. I currently weight 230, so that’s 30 pounds that I need to lose. To get to that I need to exercise 5 times a week and create a diet plan.
Now that you have a quick plan, start writing it out. I will work out before work Monday through Friday, at 6am. Workouts will consist of 40 minutes of weight lifting and 20 minutes of cardio. From there I will work on eating 5 meals a day, with each meal consisting of small portions. I will also plan out my meals ahead of time and have it all prepared during the weekend. By doing this, my goal will be to lose between 1-2 pounds a week. If I am able to keep this up and create a habit out of this, not only will I weigh 200 pounds, but I will also never go back to weighing 230.
Now, obviously that was a bit shorter and more simpler than what you will write out, but it at least gives you a good starting point. Once you have done this for each one of your goals, pick out the first goals that you need to get done to start working towards your biggest goal. It might be that you will start going to the gym 3 times a week. Once that goal is achieved and you have created a habit, go ahead and increase it to 5 times a week. Whatever it is, make sure you write it down every day in the morning and just before you go to bed.
Now that the goals are all written down and detailed out, it is time to more on to step 4.
4. Tell Someone
This might sound weird and out of place, but trust me on this. When you choose to tell someone, make sure that person holds you responsible and asks you about it at least once a week. This way you feel accountable, as you don’t want to embarrass yourself by not working on your goal. Another great way to do this is by creating an accountability call every week with one or two of your friends or even your spouse. This is a great way to hold both of yourselves accountable, especially since you don’t want to look bad in front of your friend or spouse.
A great way to make these calls is to schedule a specific time and day for them. I recommend Sunday or Monday, as they are the start and end of the week. This way you are able to set your goals for the week ahead of you and know what you need to get done. I personally have started doing accountability calls with a friend of mine and because of timing, we do ours on Saturdays at 8pm. We keep this call to an hour or less, depending on how much we have to talk about. During this call, we also have an opportunity to brainstorm and talk about any ideas or goals that we have and need help with.
Just by spending an hour or even 30 minutes on this call, we are both able to attack next week with a plan and goals that we want to accomplish. This stops us from wandering aimlessly and allows us to focus on our goals and dreams.
Now that you have either told someone or even set up an accountability call with a friend or spouse, it is time to move on to the next step.
5. Keep Going
This might sound like an obvious step and something that shouldn’t have to be mentioned. Though you might be right, a majority of people will still give up just before they were about to make a breakthrough. There have been many times in my life where I was ready to give up and go backwards, only to try one more time and realize that that one extra try was all I needed to succeed. Setting goals and writing them down might be exciting to most, and then your excitement leads you to telling everyone what your goals are, only to end up losing steam just as fast as it took you to get and stay excited.
Setting goals is fun and exciting, but actually doing the work is another story. Therefore, I want to remind you that it will not always be easy, but giving up will only lead you back to where you are now, and obviously you aren’t satisfied with where you are right now. If you were, then you wouldn’t be reading this article about setting goals and creating an amazing future for yourself.
If you don’t believe in yourself, I want to let you know that I believe in you and will hold you accountable for your goals. If you need that extra push or inspiration, check out my Youtube channel, social media pages, and go ahead and email me a list of your goals to davidmechuravlogs@gmail.com. I love to hear about other’s goals and what they want to achieve in their life. If you do end up writing me an email or even messaging me on any other platform, I will hold you accountable and follow up with you once a week to ask about how you are doing with your goals. If that isn’t enough, you can join my accountability call on Saturday at 8pm every week and we can help each other achieve these goals.
Anyways, let’s move on to the final step.
6. Celebrate
Yep, you read that right. Step 6 is all about celebrating, and by this I don’t mean you celebrate when you achieve your main goal. Instead, I want you to celebrate every single goal and win you achieve. Even if it is as simple as going to the gym that day, or eating right the whole day. Celebrate and tell your friends and even me about your success.
The more you celebrate every goal and step of the way, the greater your chances become of succeeding. Don’t be afraid to celebrate the small wins, as they compound and eventually will lead to achieving your main goal. The way I look at it is this, let’s say you use a credit card to purchase your regular items and get a 1% return on everything you buy. (More on this in another article). Now you might spend $1,000 that month and make $10 in cashback. For some people, they look at this and ask if it was worth it. The way I look at this is, if my goal is to become a millionaire, I need multiple streams of income coming in. Therefore, you will see me celebrating that I got an extra $10 in my bank account coming in every month. That means I have an additional $10 that I made on the side, without doing anything but buying food for my survival.
This same mentality should be used for your celebrations. Yeah, it might sound weird and awkward to tell others about how you went to the gym today. SO WHAT! While your friends wasted their time, you made time to go to the gym and therefore you gained one step towards your goal. So celebrate every step and as often as you can. The more you celebrate, the better you feel about yourself and your goals, and the more you will do. Until one day you realize that you have reached your main goal and didn’t even notice.
Final Tips
Now that I went through the 6 steps to goal setting, I want to leave you guys with a couple important tips that I briefly talked about in my steps. The first is that you should be writing down your goals at least twice a day. Once in the morning and the second at night. I personally use Grant Cardone’s 10X planner, as it is made for writing down your goals twice a day.
The second tip is to write your goals using present tense and setting specific dates. For example, “I am the #1 best salesperson at my job by the end of this year”. This programs your brain and subconscious to believe that you are already #1.
One last tip is to constantly go back to your written down goals and read through your detailed plan. Once you do that, really think about your “why”. Why are you setting that specific goal and why is it important for you to achieve it. If you have a powerful enough why, then you will be unstoppable and will never let anything stop you from achieving your goals.
Guys, I just want to say thank you for reading my first ever article. Please leave me some comments and a review on what you thought about it. Also check out my Youtube channel, as it will have videos on everything discussed today. I believe that reading and then watching is an amazing way to memorize and hammer down the importance of these topics.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm-Hz3X_MdLQoIiQYxh4rFA?view_as=subscriber
Feel free to also email me a review and any ideas or suggestions that you have about what I should write about next. Like I said earlier, feel free to also send me your goals and your plan to achieve them to davidmechuravlogs@gmail.com. I would love to see them and help keep you accountable. If you are interested in joining my accountability calls on Saturdays at 8pm cst, send me an email with your goals and why you want to join.
With that guys, I would like to ask you guys one more time to check out my social media pages, Youtube channel and also my other articles as well.
Hope you guys took something away and are willing to apply it into your lives. This knowledge that I shared with you today has allowed me to achieve so much and I am on my path to becoming a millionaire, and my goal is to reach that status with all of you together.
If you learn to never give up, great things will happen to you!
