Best Life Web

Achieving your goals

The start of a new year is a good time to reflect and set your goals for the upcoming year. Now you may have done this before and you may have been disappointed that so few of these goals were actually achieved. So how can we set goals that can be accomplished? If you can try to answer the below questions for yourself you may be a lot more successful in achieving your goal.

1. Positively state your goal: What exactly do you want? State what you WANT and not what you don’t want.
   eg. “I want to lose weight.”
2. Prioritize: Which goal is the most important to achieve? Although you may have several, define which goal would have the largest influence in your life and make that a priority.
   eg. “If I can lose weight I will have more energy to do the things I love.”
3. Control: What will you do to achieve this goal? Make sure that you have full control over achieving your goal: there should be no room for you to blame others for not achieving it. Realise that only you are responsible for the outcome.   
   “I will adjust my diet to make sure I eat healthy and exercise on a regular basis.”
4. Evidence: How will you know that you have achieved your goal? Try to see, hear and feel what it would be like if you had already achieved this goal and try to describe that in your answer to this question. 
   “I know I will have achieved my goal if I can fit into my favorite dress again. I will feel good about the way I look and will have lots of energy to do sports. My tennis will improve and I may be able to win the championship.”
5. Context: When do you want to achieve this goal? Specifying a time frame will help to give you a deadline and gives you something to target.
   “I want to lose 10 kg by the end of this year.”
6. Blocks: What has prevented you from already achieving this goal? Knowing what usually stops you from achieving your goal helps you to take steps to overcome this.
   “I love sugar too much and keep procrastinating exercise.”
7. Resources: Which resources (skills, belief, support, behaviour) do you already have that can help you achieving this goal? And which ones would you need? This will help you realise that you may already have plenty of resources/ skills and can make you aware of what resources you will need, eg. additional training in some areas.
   “I already know a lot about eating healthy but will need to buy more healthy foods. I will need lots of healthy snacks at hand when I get any cravings. I will need some help from a personal trainer for my exercise.”
8. Ecology: What will you gain or lose in achieving this goal? It’s good to look at your whole life and look how succeeding with your goal may effect other goals or people.  
   “I will feel better about myself and will feel healthier. This will improve my relationships with others as I will have more energy for fun activities.“
9. Worthwhile: How is this goal worthwhile (what will achieving this goal get for you)? When you are clear about how your goal will fulfill you it will be easier to reach it.
   “I know that goal is worthwhile because it will give me the energy to do the things I want to achieve in life. It will make me feel more confident and energetic.”
10. Action: What is your next action in order to achieve your goal? Make sure that you break your goal down into smaller manageable steps. And focus on the NOW. Only the current moment and the actions you do in that moment can bring you closer to your goal, one step at the time.
    “I will no longer drink soft drinks as they contain a lot of sugar. Once I have eliminated these from my life I will stop buying and eating biscuits. I will also make a start with finding healthier recipes.”

If you answer all these questions for yourself and write the answers down, you will find that you are clearer about your goal and why you want to achieve it. This will keep you motivated.

Keep breaking the goal down into smaller steps and realise that all necessary work has to be done in the current moment. Doing this you are well under way to actually achieve that goal.

Good luck!