Life has a nasty habit of interrupting the best-laid plans, but more often than not, it’s our own minds that get in the way of our goals. We make plethora of excuses for why those goals don’t get checked off our lists, and we become our own worst enemies.Let this be the end of all that.We all have goals we’re reaching towards, striving for and basing our lives largely around. But what happens when you run into things like failure? In effect, what are the best ways to achieve your goals, even in the face of great turmoil, upset and resistance from every corner?
Yet, achieving a goal is never straightforward. It’s never simple or easy. It’s a monumental task, one that involves total dedication from the mind, body and spirit. Here are a few important steps to keep in mind while chasing your goals.
1. Define your Fears Instead of your Goals
Think about what you’re putting off for the “right moment.” What holds you back? What are you afraid of? Make a note of the worst things that might happen if you fail. Then ponder over them as to what you’ll do if they happen and how you could prevent them.
2. Set Goals That Motivate You
When you set goals for yourself, it is important that they motivate you always. Which means making sure that they are important to you, and that there is value in achieving them. If you have little interest in the outcome, or they are irrelevant given the larger picture, then the chances of you putting in the work to make them happen are slim. Motivation is key to achieving goals.
Goal achievement requires dedication, so to maximize the amount of success, you need to feel a sense of urgency and have an attitude of “I must do this”. If you lack this, you are risking your own goals to make it a reality.
3. The Power of Setting a Schedule, Not a Deadline
In my experience, a better way to approach your goals is to set a schedule to operate by rather than a deadline to perform by.Instead of giving yourself a deadline to accomplish a particular goal by you should choose a goal that is important to you and then set a schedule to work towards it consistently.
4. Dedicate your Time
There are many things you can do to help make the process easier and keep yourself focused. At the end of the day though, most goals are achieved by putting a lot of time and hard work into making them a reality.Think about how long you expect it to take to achieve your goal, and when you want it to be completed. For example, imagine you expect you’ll need 50 hours of work to master the basics of playing drums and you want learn it in a month. You’ll need to spend a little over an hour on this every day.
5. Understand Why This Goal Is Important
Understanding the why will give you a stronger sense of purpose, and this sense of purpose will keep you motivated during those tough times. When you lack a sense of purpose if things do start to go awry, there is nothing stopping you from downgrading your goal and lowering the bar. To achieve big bold goals, you need to be firm on the goal, but flexible on the approach, and having a strong why will help you keep your eyes on the prize and keep going in the tough times.
6. Be Persistent and Never give up no Matter what Happens
The hardest part about achieving a lofty goal, is that inner urge and desire to give up when the going gets tough. Big goals take time — a long time. We’re not talking about weeks or months here; we’re talking about years and even decades for some of our biggest goals in life. Clearly, the best way to achieve any goal then, is to be persistent. You never actually know how close you are if you give up.If you can envision things deeply enough, you can stay focused.
I know that it can be difficult to keep your focus, especially when so many things seem to go wrong in life.While it might feel like it’s breaking you, it’s actually setting you up for something brighter and greater in life.It’s important to keep your faith, no matter what religion you believe in, through the most difficult times. It’s certainly a pathway to persistence, especially if you’ve lost your way. It will allow you to recover from failure, learn from it and use it as a foundation for success in life.So, stay focused and keep the faith if you want to stay persistent, which is by far one of the best and surest ways of achieving your goals in life, no matter how long they might take you.