7 secrets to achieving your goals

Your journey to achieving your goals is your own. You’ll need to figure out what approaches work for you, in your unique situation. But the good news is that you don’t have to start from scratch!

There are proven techniques that have worked for countless people, and there’s a good chance they’ll work for you if you give them a fair shake. Take a look, and think about which techniques will work best for you…

1 — Make It Visual

A powerful way to keep your goal front and center is to make it visual and present in your physical environment — so you can’t miss it!

Think about writing your goal down on sticky notes and posting it where you will see it every day: your desk, the dashboard of your car, or the bathroom mirror. Or, create a digital wallpaper that highlights your goals for your phone’s home screen and your computer’s desktop.

Alternatively, try creating a vision board — a collection of images that represent your goals. Post your vision board on a wall where you’ll see it every day. You could also create a miniature version to carry around with you in your wallet or bag and review it regularly.

2 — Write It Down 

This secret is incredibly simple, yet surprisingly effective:

Adopt a daily habit of writing and re-writing your goals. Some experts suggest that you write your goals down once a day; others suggest as many as 3 times a day. To get started, try writing down your goals once a day in a paper journal — perhaps each morning before you begin your day, or the last thing at night before you go to bed.

This technique works because it brings your attention back to your goals, again and again. You’ll be reminded that there’s an opportunity every single day to move toward your goals, even if only in a small way.

3 — Stay Accountable

There is power in declaring our goals to the world. Who can you share your goals with? Who would you never want to disappoint?

Perhaps you could tell your spouse that you are committed to losing weight so you’ll be healthy and active with your grandkids. Or tell your trusted friend at work that you’re spending every weekend on your side hustle so you can quit your job someday.

Make sure that whoever you declare your goals to is firmly in your corner — you don’t want people who might demotivate you or try and sabotage you.

4 — Put Your Goals First

You might have the best plan possible for your goals, but a plan means nothing if you don’t make the goals a consistent priority in your life.

Try to invest a consistent amount of time working on your goals each day — and try to get this time in as early in the day as possible, when there’s the least risk of interruption or distraction.

Author Brian Tracy is famous for his advice to “Eat that frog,” based on the old proverb “Eat a live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.” Tracy advises that you tackle your most challenging or unpleasant task first thing, freeing up energy for the rest of the day. In the context of achieving your goals, you can focus on doing something (again, it may be a small step) to move toward your next milestone first, before you move on to other work. This ensures your goals are never playing second fiddle to other urgent demands.

A couple of examples:

If your goal is to email 5 new people a day to set up discovery calls, you could email them first thing when you get to work — rather than waiting until late in the afternoon when you are more likely to talk yourself out of it.

If your goal is to work out every day for 60 minutes, schedule your workouts in the first half of the day — rather than in the second half when your to-do list is overflowing and your willpower is fading.

5 — Don’t Break The Chain

We talked about this strategy in a previous module— but it’s so good that it’s worth reviewing. Grab a paper calendar, or print out a calendar template, and mark off each day that you take action on your goal.

Set a goal for how many days you can go without breaking the chain. If your goal is to meditate for 15 minutes every day, set an initial “streak goal” of 7 days, or 21 days or even 66 days — whatever feels right for you. Then, reward yourself for not breaking the chain!

6 — Embrace Tiny Actions

Momentum is often underestimated. It has a huge role to play in helping us take action towards our goals.

You can gain energy by taking tiny actions, which build over time to create unstoppable momentum.

Examples Of Tiny Actions:

• Take 5 minutes to make a quick plan for exactly what you’re going to eat tomorrow (with choices that are consistent with your health and weight loss goals).
• Call your favorite local restaurant to make a dinner reservation, so you can have some quiet time to catch up with your spouse (contributing to your broader goal of having a great relationship).
• During your lunch break, read an article on startup culture for your business goal.

You can see these aren’t huge actions that take a lot of time. A great way to get started is to write a list of tiny actions you can take to move toward your goals. On days when you are strapped for time or not feeling 100%, you can pick something small from your list to check off. Then you can rest easy at night knowing that you took some action towards your goals, even on the busiest of days.

7 — The Law Of Incremental Action 

The law of incremental action is about starting tiny actions, and then building on them to make real progress towards your goal.

Let’s say you’ve never worked out before. The idea of going for a run or even a brisk walk may seem daunting. Could you start today by walking for just one minute?

Chances are you can!

How about tomorrow – can you walk for 2 minutes?

And the day after that you add a minute.

And the day after that you add another minute.

And pretty soon you’re walking 30 minutes at a stretch. One day, you think: Can I try running – just for a minute….?

And the cycle continues until eventually, you find yourself achieving your goal of running a full 5K.

This approach is especially helpful when you set goals that seem impossible at first, or when you find it hard to take consistent big actions. If that’s the case, take a step back and look at what tiny incremental actions you can start with. Over time, these will lead naturally to bigger and bolder steps towards your dreams.