Let’s jump right in here. What’s the toughest part about reaching your goals?
Not defining them, usually.
Not figuring out how to reach them.
The path to even the most difficult goals is usually obvious. Action 1, action 2, action 3, acgtion 4, and so on. If you want to write a book and get a great book deal, that’s difficult to do but not difficult to understand how to do.
The difficulty is in the doing, the action, the day-to-day continued commitment.
Why? What happens? It isn’t usually because the work is so hard. It’s because we lose the vision, and then we don’t remember why… and we’re basically lazy… and old habits are strong. So we give up.
Answer? Put something in place to take the place of that rush of vision.
1. Accountability
Accountability means saying in some public way or another, “Hey, I’m doing this! Everybody watch and see!”
It’s almost a dare. It’s exposure. It’s bold. It’s unnerving. And it makes you want to do whatever you said you’d do, because now you’ve got an audience and they’re going to know your failure if you give up.
“Everybody” doesn’t have to be a big group. It could be your spouse, a couple of friends, a small group of folks with the same interest. It could be your blog readership, which might be very small or very large depending. It could be your entire social network.
The size of the group doesn’t matter; what matters is that in some public way you make a commitment. You share the vision and you share the plan, and you say, “Dare you to watch me accomplish this.”
And then you don’t want to quit, because you’ve got a person, or people, or a group, watching you. You don’t want to disappoint them. You don’t want to be embarrassed. And that motivation, of pleasing and impressing people, can be enough to keep you going even when the vision is really vague.
2. Tracking
Tracking means specific actions and deadlines and then keeping track of how well you do at achieving those actions by those deadlines.
Tracking also means collecting information related to your actions or ultimate goals. Keeping a food journal, for example, and recording your daily weight is a way to track your progress on a diet or fitness program.
Tracking can be as simple as writing stuff down on a piece of paper or the calendar and scratching it off once you’ve achieved it.
Of course, there are lots of other more tech-savvy ways to track your progress, too.
- You can get goal-tracking software or use an online goal-tracking system, such as Joe’s Goals.
- Join a goal-tracking group, which could be “real-world” ( Weight Watchers, for example), or based online ( 43Things).
- Put a goal-tracking app on your smart phone: I use Trak for iPhone. It’s free.
- Or get any other type of system you want in place (calendar, notebook, etc.).
The point is, you track your day-to-day progress and you grab the information that helps you become more aware of your pgoress, your habits, and then obstacles you need to overcome to reach your goals.
And that information can be powerful motivation, a new awareness that keeps you going even when you can’t remember quite why you’re pursuing this goal.
Work It Together
For any challenging goal, the smartest move (if you want to succeed, that is) is to use both tracking and accountability. Tracking can be as detailed as you like, as simple or complicated as you need. Just keep up with it. Look at how far you’ve come. Get the information. get a system in place for it.
Add the tracking to some kind of accountability. Start a blog, join a group, join a forum, take on a challenge with a friend.
Achieving your goals is difficult because it requires you to stretch out of your comfortable boundaries and create new spaces, new habits. You have to stretch, you have to lose old habits, and you have to gain proficiency at unfamiliar and difficult tasks. Don’t set yourself up for failure. Don’t be a loner. Share your vision and it becomes stronger.
If one fails to develop goals that give meaning to one’s existence, if on does not use the mind to its fullest, then good feelings fulfill just a fraction of the potential we possess. A person who achieves contentment by withdrawing from the world to “cultivate his own garden,” like Voltaire’s Candide, cannot be said to lead an excellent life. Without dreams, without risks, only a trivial semblance of living can be achieved.
Image: success by charliedayartist
