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10 Easy Steps to Accomplish Your Goals
1. Write Your Goal Down
Do you remember all of those ideas you had when you were in elementary school? No? What about how many times have you forgotten to do something that you said you were going to do? This is exactly why it is crucial to write down your goals as soon as possible.
Grab a notebook and get to writing! Brainstorm different ideas and circle or highlight the ones you like the most. There is no such thing as a stupid idea, at least when you are trying to figure out what specific goal you are trying to accomplish. Narrow down your favorites after you have emptied your brain of all the different possibilities. This also allows your brain to free up space and clutter, which might hamper your ability to concentrate on a specific goal.
Writing down goals is also important because you might forget the goal you wanted to accomplish. You might end up remembering it days, weeks, or months later when you could have started working on that goal as soon as you got home from school or work. This is the crucial first step to becoming successful. When you push off doing this step, you push off accomplishing your dreams. Remember, time waits for no one. So, the sooner you write it down, the sooner you can get started!
2. Break Your Goal Into Smaller Steps
One of the most daunting things to do is to look at a humongous goal with no idea where to start. You can get intimidated just by the size of it. You might begin wondering if it is even humanly possible to achieve your goal because of all of the work that has to be done. Your brain may start to stress out and overheat. Now, you have to come back to working on your goal another time when you could have started today. You might even walk away from the goal entirely and tell yourself, “It was impossible to achieve anyway.”
Above all, the key to avoiding becoming overwhelmed is to look at the goal in reasonable parts and sections instead of looking at it as a massive pile of work.
For example, let’s take a look at the fairly simple, yet daunting task of cleaning a cluttered room. You walk in and immediately you are hit with a wave of dread as you look at the piles of clothes on your bed, dirty clothes on the ground, papers scattered all over your desk, and spoiled food on your T.V. stand. Everything else is a mess! But, instead of walking out the room and saying, “I’ll get to it tomorrow,” how about sectioning out the giant task of cleaning your room.
For instance, in your notebook underneath your goal, write out steps such as “Step 1: Fold clothes and Put on Hangers, Step 2: Throw away trash by the T.V., Step 3: Organize Papers on desk,” and so forth. You can organize steps by literally listing “Step 1, 2, 3” or by days, months. You can even make a checklist.
Ultimately, how you decide to organize your steps is up to you, as long as you break the bigger task into smaller ones. Depending on how hard it is for you to start, you might want to set up rewards for accomplishing each step or a group of steps.
3. Set Up A Reward System
What do you really want to do right now? Do you want to watch T.V.? Do you want to go shopping? Do you want to hang out with friends? Do you want to talk on the phone? There is always something else you would rather be doing than working on the task at hand. This is what you set as your reward.
Essentially, the way you break down your goal and the goal’s type dictates how you reward yourself. For long term goals, you may want to reward yourself every Friday after a week of hard work. You could even set it to where you reward yourself every night by watching your favorite show for accomplishing certain steps of your goal.
In addition, for something smaller such as doing homework, you could reward yourself by playing video games after you finished everything for the day. For instance, every time I finish a session of writing a blog, I read my favorite manga. The best part about it is that I can read as much manga as I would like without the guilt of feeling lazy.
So, in your note book next to your steps, write your reward for accomplishing each step or multiple steps. If it is an ongoing goal such as blogging, drawing, or practicing music for a certain period of time everyday, still write a reward for doing those activities that day. Always reward yourself. When motivation runs out, knowing that there is a reward at the end will be the thing that keeps you going.
4. Write Down the Benefits of Accomplishing Your Goal
Motivation is a fleeting thing. A common misconception is that once you become unmotivated, the task is no longer worth it. Some people believe that if you are not motivated enough than it is not important enough. This is a lie. What keeps you going is something called discipline and willpower.
However, the thing that keeps you disciplined and keeps you building willpower, is understanding your reason and purpose for achieving a goal. You have to have a “why.” There is a saying that “If your why doesn’t make you cry, it is not a strong enough why.” Though I disagree with the idea that it has to make you cry, I do believe that a goal must be strong enough to have some form of positive benefits at the end of it all.
Next, underneath your steps and rewards, write down your “why” or the benefits of accomplishing your goal. If you cannot write down 3 benefits, than you are less likely to be able to power through the steps to achieving your goal. Your reason for doing it just is not strong enough. What will end up happening is your brain will realize that your reasoning for achieving a goal is not the best, and you will eventually convince yourself to stop. The point of writing out the benefits is to remind yourself when you get weak of why you are working on this goal instead of doing something more immediately pleasurable like watching Hulu.
5. Set Due Dates
Now is the time to apply a little pressure to completing your goals. One of the best ways to apply healthy pressure is to have due dates for when you want to either have the entire goal accomplished or certain steps of your goal accomplished.
Moreover, be reasonable and realistic when deciding on due dates. Look at your calendar to see if you have any important events coming up that might need the majority of your attention.
Also, access your general everyday schedule to see how much time you can allot everyday to this project. Then, you can calculate the estimated amount of time it would take to finish your task. A good tip is to add a couple of extra days so just in case something does happen, you still have enough time to finish your goal.
In addition, we all have experienced this in school where many of us waited until the last minute to finish the bulk of a project the night before. Even though breaking up your goal into smaller steps is supposed to prevent rushing to finish a project at the last second, things do happen. If you had the ability to write full blown essays or finish lengthy group projects in one night during school, then what makes you think you are not able to push yourself to finish a goal of yours by certain dates?
However, here comes the challenge! How are you going to be able to push yourself when you do not have a teacher or a grade on your back to hold you accountable? Well, there are many ways to do that!
6. Hold Yourself Accountable in 3 Ways
One of the best ways to accomplish a goal is to be in communication with someone who is either trying to accomplish similar goals as you or finish their goals in a similar time frame as you. Also, having someone who you respect hold you accountable to where you would not want to disappoint them is another great motivator.
Have a Goal Partner
First, having a partner who is in the same boat as you when it comes to goals creates friendly competition. This competition is not necessarily to prove you are better than your partner, but is instead a competition to see who will actually stick to their goal and be successful. There are many ways to find a partner or a group of people who are on similar paths as you. For instance, you can ask your friends, family members, or look up and join various productivity facebook groups.
In the end, just make sure that whoever you do choose to be your goal partner is just as motivated and serious about their goals as you are. The point of having a partner is to help push you to achieve your goals, so do not choose someone who has a history of not sticking to tasks and giving up. Choose someone who has a history of being accountable and is determined to make a better life for themselves.
In the end, surround yourself with like minded people because no one wants to be the only one that did not stick to what they said they were going to do.
Let Friends and Family Know What You Are Doing
Second, you can let your friends and family know that you are trying to accomplish a certain goal by a certain time. You do not have to necessarily go into in-depth details about everything you are doing, however, you should give enough details to where they have a general idea what what you are trying to achieve. This way you feel the healthy pressure to achieve what you said you were going to do. You more than likely would not want to disappoint your family or friends. As a result, knowing that they are expecting you to finish your goal might be the extra push you need.
In addition, you can ask them to hold you accountable for your actions. For example, let them know when you are supposed to be working on your project so that they can periodically check to see if you are focused on the task at hand. If this does not help, there is another option!
Let Your Social Media Following Know What You Are Doing
In addition, you can always let your social media following know you are working on a certain goal that is to be accomplished in a certain period of time. You do not have to go into depth about what you are doing. Just give the vague details and the date in which you would like to accomplish it. You can even take pictures and post your progress to keep people interested. This also allows you to document your own progress so that you can see that you are indeed making steps forward. This way, you feel even more motivated to get things done. Just like your family and friends, you do not want to let your fans down.
7. Set Up Consequences
Another way to hold yourself accountable is to set up consequences if you do not achieve certain steps of your goal by a certain time. Consequences can include restricting activities such as hanging out with your friends or playing video games. The consequences you decide on have to be major enough to where you would want to avoid them. Do not choose something that will not affect you in some way. For instance, if you do not watch T.V. on a regular basis, do not choose the consequence of no Netflix for week. It would not affect you. Instead choose something that will have some impact on you. Write down these consequences next to the due dates in your journal. This way you know that if this date comes, and your goal is not accomplished, a consequence is on its way.
The point of a consequence is not to make your life harder but to make you stay focused. It also teaches you that to every action there is a consequence. In this case, there is a negative consequence for not doing what you said you were going to do!
8. Get Rid of Distractions
Before you can get started, you need to make sure that you remove any distractions. This can be your phone, video games, T.V., family members, etc. The list can go on and on. Whatever it is that distracts you, remove it. Hide your phone in a different room. You might even have to put it on silent if you are the type of person that absolutely has to see who sent you a text or what notifications you received on Instagram.
If your distraction is people, let them know that you have to get to work, and move to a different room. If you cannot move to a different room, then get sound canceling headphones. You might even have to go to a coffee shop or library to get the distraction free environment you need.
In addition, having a good music playlist set up is important whether or not you have to be around people. Music can either make or break your focus. So, make sure the music you do choose helps you to concentrate on the task at hand and does not become another distraction. For instance, when I am writing a blog post, I listen to Lofi because it does no have distracting singing or too hype of a beat that takes me completely out of what I am writing about.
In the end, create a distraction free environment before you get started because you do not want to stop in a middle of a project to get rid of a distraction. Once you start something, you want to keep that flow going.
9. Get Started
Now, that you have your goal written down along with its steps, rewards, benefits, due dates, and consequences, it is time to get started! One of the best methods of getting started is to just tell yourself to work for 2-5 minutes and then you can stop.
Essentially, you want to choose a small amount of time that seems like no time, but also long enough to where you actually get started deep enough into an activity to where your brain wants to finish it. If I am writing a blog, I will say work 5 minutes because it is long enough to where I begin to become invested into what I am writing and want to keep going because I am not at a good stopping point. You can use this method on pretty much anything from cleaning the house to getting homework done. If you really struggle to start working, 2 minutes is all you need to tell yourself.
Eventually, you can bump up the time to 5 minutes, then to 10 minutes. The more and more you get into the habit of starting your task, the easier it gets to begin and keep going. But be careful not to get too caught up into what you are doing to where you try to finish a huge project that is impossible to finish in a day. Stay reasonable with yourself and remember to take breaks!
10. Remember to Take Breaks!
Lastly, take breaks! Oftentimes, we get caught up in what we are doing and forget to take a pause. The less consistent breaks you take, the more likely you are to burn out. The last thing you want is to have to end up taking a couple of days off because you got overwhelmed and your brain juices ran out. This also helps prevent overworking and straining certain parts of your body such as your hands and eyes, especially if you have a goal that requires a lot of writing and staring. Breaks are the key to longevity.
Futhermore, there are many break methods. I use the Pomodoro Technique. With this method, you work for 25 minutes, then take a 5 minute break. Then after 4 repetitions, take a 15-30 minute break and restart your 25 minute cycle afterwards. Make sure to find the break technique that works best for you. You may have to try different ones or you may have to modify a method so that it best fits with you. One size does not fit all.
In the end, no matter how big or small your goal is, it can and will be achieved as long as you put consistent effort into it. Even if you tell other people about what you are doing, and they give you nothing but negativity, still go for your goal. Remember that you were the one that was given the goal, not everyone else in the world. That means that most people will not understand what you are doing or see how it will be beneficial in the very end. They were not given that vision, so do not expect them to get where you are coming from or get why you are so focused on the task at hand.
Ultimately, keep moving forward. No one else can achieve your goal for you. In the end, you are your biggest cheerleader. Remember, if you do not believe in your own dreams, then you cannot possibly expect anyone else to.
Comment a short description of your goal today, and in the future, update us on how things are going! Also, do not leave this post without sharing it with 2 or more people who are working on a goal!
