How To Have Better Success And Achieve Your Goals
When goal-setting and making plans is not enough, you need one more ingredient to yield success.
We all have goals.
Whether you call them that is up to you. Maybe it’s a dream, a wish, a desire… whatever it is, it’s something you want to have, to be, to do, that you cannot right now.
Maybe you want to travel to Thailand, own a Tesla, run your own company, or lose 10 pounds.
Great! I’m in for all of those things. Problem is, having those desires where many of us stop.
Basic Level Goal-Setting
Often, we have the desire in our head, but it stays there.
Some of us go a step further and actually make progress. We ride the (temporary) high that comes from imagining what it will be like to accomplish that goal.
So we wake up early, we go to the gym, we stop spending money to save instead. We write a business plan. We skip the doughnut at breakfast.
But that doesn’t usually last, does it? We grow tired, worn out, bored, and then talk ourselves back into our old lifestyle.
Accepting what we had before wasn’t that bad, and a new mentality sets in… “Achieving that goal is just too much work” and “I don’t really want it that bad.”
Some of us even cycle through the highs and lows. We identify the goal, get motivated, then burn out, revert, and find a new goal.
Advanced Level Goal-Setting
Now, the really savvy of us get elbows deep in the planning. We write out a schedule, draw a road map, build a strategy, and follow it to a T. And this can definitely push you farther down the path of achieving your goal.
But what happens? We may or may not see results, but we run into similar headwinds. “All of that work upfront, and this is all I got?”
So the same cycle is endured. We found a goal, we were motivated, we planned, but we still burned out, and reverted back to our old lifestyle.
If writing out a plan to achieve your goals is the push, what is the pull?
Keep reading…
Expert Level Goal-Setting
So, what’s the missing ingredient?
Simply, accountability.
Now, you’re on the right track working up a plan for your goal. And I’ll be the first to root you on and help you stay motivated, but you’re not done yet.
You need to take one more step.
Share your goal with someone. Anyone! Put it out in the world so there is a record of you naming that goal.
Tell a significant other, your best friend, your sibling. Let them know how you will measure the goal’s progress, and how you (and they) will know when you’ve succeeded.
You can use an app, or a wager with someone, or a commitment platform (have you seen Stickk? https://www.stickk.com/). Or use social media.
- If you want a Telsa, put a picture of one on your Instagram feed. Then tell the world how you are going to get it.
- You want to lose 10 pounds. Put MyFitnessPal on your phone and share your daily inputs with a partner.
- Tell a friend you’ll pay them if you deviate from your plan. This will be a payment not if you fail to accomplish it, because failing is a learning opportunity, but rather if you fail to try. There’s a consequence that hurts worse than not reaching your goal.
- You can hire a coach, join a mastermind group, or share your goal with strangers.
Generally, people do more to avoid pain than gain pleasure. In fact, the more you put your goal out there, the more accountability you create for yourself.
This creates a larger threat of pain. Thus, a higher likelihood of success.
Understand that you cannot delegate accountability.
You have to continually take ownership.
You have to hold your feet to the fire.
You have to be accountable.
Only then will you work on a solution.
“There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them” — Denis Waitley
