9 Tips For Achieving All Of Your Life Goals
- Updated on: 2017-06-04
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If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance that you are a high achiever and you plenty of goals.
If you’re anything like me, it can be easy to get lost in the shuffle of building your business, which could mean you lose sight of those goals before you can fully achieve them. Maybe you set goals that aren’t challenging enough and they fall by the wayside. Or maybe you set goals that aren’t in line with your definition of success and you lose steam before you even get started.
Whatever it is, it doesn’t feel good when we realized that we aren’t or aren’t going to be successful.
I wanted to interview an expert on the best way set goals that will propel us forward AND help be, and feel, fulfilled and successful once we’ve accomplished those goals.
I met Michael Hyatt a few years back and recently realized that he was the expert I needed to talk to. Not only is he one of the nicest, most graceful and open-hearted guys I know, he is an extremely successful blogger and coach who has a massive following (and at least one NYT best-seller). Michael was gracious enough to open up about his own struggles with finding the right balance between drive and happiness.
What I really loved about our interview was the importance on defining the why behind our goals. If we don’t have a clear vision on why achieving a certain goal is important, we lose urgency and drive. And a lot of people think that the achievement of the goal is where the happiness lies: I’ll be truly happy when I’ve built my business or found the perfect partner or have the perfect home. But it’s more about the pursuit of a meaningful goal. It’s about the journey, not the destination.
Here are Michael’s tips for having the best journey you can and come out happy on the other side:
Sometimes we hang on to things that hold us back from moving forward. Identify what you’re holding on to, let it go and then decide what you want to do next. If your goal isn’t big enough you won’t have the excitement or generate the momentum to pursue it. Make what you want as scary as possible. If you’re a high achiever, you’ve got a different mindset from a lot of people. We can’t hold more than 10 things in our mind at one time. Studies show that we just get distracted when we’re trying to focus on more than that Focusing on 7-10 goals will give you greater room for success.If you write a goal down and give yourself a deadline, you are giving yourself the physical reminder of what it is you want and how long you have to achieve it. Putting pen to paper gives you a sense of commitment to yourself and will help you hold yourself accountable.Why is this goal important? Is it something you own and are you clear on its purpose? Write down why it’s important and what’s at stake if you achieve/don’t achieve it. This will help you eliminate any goals that have been imposed upon you or that don’t serve your bigger picture.We have to figure out what square one is before we can do anything else. A lot of us get so caught up in the excitement of the end goal that we forget to think about how to get there. If you can define where to start, and what the logical steps are, you’ll have more success. In the pursuit of a big goal we all inevitably hit the messy middle. We get stuck and think we’ve gone too far to backtrack or start over. Look at your goals and figure out whether they’re still relevant to your mission. And then realize that you have options- recommit to the goal, revise the goal, remove the goal. If you’re analyzing your goals from a place of clarity then your decision on what’s next is made with intention instead of a knee jerk reaction.Share your goals with a person or a few people that love you and support you. They will help hold your feet to the fire when things get tough or when deadlines get close. They’ll also be the ones that help reel you in when you lose sight of your finish line.And give yourself permission to celebrate ANY progress. If you don’t aim high, then you’re not going to go anywhere. But remember that any progress is progress.
We are all trying to move forward in life, in our careers and our relationships, etc. Setting goals in any (or each) or those areas of life will remind you of why you are passionate about the things you love and will help you remove the excess noise that isn’t serving you.
Check out the full podcast here:
Lewis Howes is an online marketing expert, sought-after business coach, author, podcaster, and lifestyle entrepreneur. A former pro football player, collegiate football record holder, two-sport All-American, and current USA Men's National Handball team member, he is the host of The School of Greatness podcast, which has been downloaded by millions since its iTunes launch in January of 2013. Howes has built multi-million dollar online education business and Details Magazine as one of "5 Internet Gurus Who Can Make You Rich."
