HOW TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS THIS YEAR
/Most people I’ve asked agree that New Years resolutions rarely work. After all it’s easy to declare that you want to achieve a certain goal or radically change your life, but doing so is rarely easy. What’s missing for most of us who fail to achieve our goals year after year is an understanding of how our minds function and how are old habits work against us.
The good news is that positive changes are possible for anyone, including you, if we have the right tools to make them happen and create sufficient awareness around how our thoughts and habits impact our behavior.
Photo by Paul Garrett
Five Steps For Realizing Your Goals
Creating awareness around your prime goal/goals
Asking yourself vital questions
Replacing old habits with new success habits
Creating a winning plan
Implementing daily actions toward your goal(s)
Creating Awareness Around Your Prime Goal/Goals
If you want to succeed, you must become mindful of your thoughts, your behaviors and your habits. Thoughts can either help or impair you. If you believe that you will succeed you will be much more likely step into action to achieve your goals. However, often lurking in our subconscious minds are are doubts and fears that can potentially derail progress toward our goals. Mastering your mind through awareness and reprogramming is necessary in order to create a winning mindset. In any new endeavor you will inevitably encounter problems, roadblocks and setbacks. By consciously creating a winning mindset you will become more resilient, more determined and more successful.
In my business life I like to focus on the activities that excite me and give me energy. If I fail at something I ask myself “what is the lesson and how I can do better the next time around?” This helps me to grow and prepares me to level up. By expanding my awareness, I am able to see the big picture and find the best path forward toward achieving my goals.
““Beliefs are thought pattern. Habits are repeated behaviors””
Asking Yourself Vital Questions
Ask yourself, “How badly do I want to achieve my prime goals for this year?” Overcoming resistance toward your goals requires a burning desire to succeed. Become aware of what you want and everything that is a barrier to your success. This awareness will help you to move forward with positive momentum. The stronger you desire to achieve a goal, the more likely that you will sustain your motivation and be successful.
“The starting point of all achievement is DESIRE. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desire brings weak results, just as a small fire makes a small amount of heat.” “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”
Five Vital Questions to Ask Yourself
Am I sufficiently motivated toward achieving my goal?
What behaviors and habits must I change in order to succeed?
Am I willing to create success habits and develop the discipline to succeed?
Where can I find mentors to give me guidance?
What resources do I currently have to help me get started?
Self sabotage is often the reason why people fail to succeed. Underlying this is often fear or the feeling that you are not good enough. Self study is a very important part of your journey through life. Get to know yourself and invest in self development. There are lots of books, videos and other resources that you can learn from. It’s also a good idea to hire a personal development coach to help you uncover any mental blocks that may be holding you back. As you come to understand yourself better, you will become more confident.
Replacing Old Habits With New Success Habits
Old habits that no longer serve us can be a major obstacle to our success. Our minds are drawn to what we know or what we are used to doing. Because habits are second nature and easy to repeat, they can also be a factor that causes us to waste time doing unproductive routines.
To form a new habit it is necessary for you to create new routines and to repeat this more beneficial behavior daily until it is wired into your mind. Repetition helps your brain create new neuro-pathways and connections, and then reinforces these circuits to make them become part of your memory. Eventually new tasks that use to take a high level of concentration and effort in the beginning become routine and easy to do. To form a new habit can take anywhere from twenty-one to sixty-three days to develop. During this time it is important to be persistent and make sure that you practice your new behavior everyday to reinforce it in your brain. Through practice over time you will develop mental acuity where you need it most and increase your chances for success.
This video from The School of Greatness will further help you understand how to reach your goals.
Mental Acuity
“Mental acuity is sharpness of the mind. Things considered in determining a person’s mental acuity are memory, focus, concentration, and understanding.”
A wonderful book that helped me change during a transition period in my life is “Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself: How to Lose Your Mind and Create a New One,” by Dr. Joe Dispenza. As the title suggests, this book will help you understand how to rewire your brain and become the person who you want to be. Another popular book that I highly recommend for entrepreneurs is, “Think and Grow Rich,” by Napoleon Hill. In addition to revealing the secret habits of highly successful business people, this book teaches you how to harness the supernatural to help you along the way to achieving your goals.
Creating a Winning Plan
A plan is like a road map that will help you to get from your starting point to your destination. In order to succeed, you will need a longterm plan where you chart out the major milestones that you want to achieve by certain dates. To do this start with your end goal date and then work backward toward your starting point. This longterm plan will be subject to change as you progress, but your major goals along the way will help you chart your path to success.
My big goal this year is to film all of the interviews for my documentary film, “Yoga Saved My Life: How to Heal Via Movement, Breath Work and Meditation.” To complete this project I have charted out plans for my website, funding, purchasing gear, scheduling interviews, shooting interviews and commencing post production. By the end of the year I will be in great shape for editing the film, marketing it to distributors and creating publicity for it.
Implementing Daily Actions Toward Your Goal(s)
In addition to your longterm plans, it is important to plan out your days and create a working structure that will help you move step by step toward your end goal. Author and podcaster, Tim Ferriss, recommends creating daily goals that are easily achievable so that you don’t fail and become discouraged. For example, when it comes to writing books his goal is to “write two crappy pages a day.” This is highly reasonable compared with a goal like writing ten pages a day.
At the end of each day, write down your major goal for the next day and start with that. When you complete that goal you can then address other tasks, like answering emails, that can distract your energy and consume your time. Also, put away your phone and any other distractions as you complete your main task, and create an environment that is conducive for your creativity and your focus.
It is 11:32 pm as I am writing this blog. I am a night owl and do my best writing between 11 pm and 2 am. Get to know yourself and do your most focus intensive tasks during the time of day when you feel the most creative and productive. When I complete my work tonight, I will write down notes as to what I need to achieve tomorrow. By doing that I will have direction and know exactly what I need to do when I get down to business again. In addition, by also charting out my long term goals I will have an overall road map that will keep me moving step by step toward my long term goals.
Pep Talk and Conclusion
The biggest obstacle toward chasing a goal is often overcoming the resistance to just get started. Procrastination and excuses get us nowhere as we justify why we are not ready to get started yet. If this is you, then you may have to revise your goals and chose a path where you already have what you need to get started. Think about your skills, your passion, your network and your current resources. What can you do with what you have right now? One of the mistakes that new entrepreneurs often make is getting overwhelmed with the “how’s” of their business. How am I going to do this and where am I going to get the money to buy what I need for my endeavor? Overthinking, creates doubts and fears which will sink your dreams if you let them.
“The beginning is the most important part of the work.”
Get started now with what you already have. Take inspired action. Do research. Join a business group and create a network of people who can help you. Just get started and the answers will come to you. Day by day with focused work you will begin to make progress that will add up and get you closer to achieving your goals. Create the habits that will lead you to success. Schedule out your days, weeks, months and years to keep yourself on track.
One thing that I’ve learned from owning my own business is that when I believe enough in my dreams and take inspired action, the universe always brings me the resources and the opportunities that I need at the right time. The biggest thing is to believe in yourself, plan for success and take inspired action on a daily basis. Like anything, if you want it badly enough you can achieve it!
All the best,
Paul Garrett
Total Soulful Journey
