Successful Goal Setting in Small Steps
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Do you still remember the goal setting you went through last year? How many have you stuck with through the year? Did you write them down? Did you look at them every day or did you simply put them out of your mind and out of your consciousness so as not to be reminded of your lack of commitment? It’s the pleasure pain principle in action. We will always do more to avoid pain than we will to seek out pleasure. It’s in our mental programming.
When you toasted to your new goals, at midnight on new years eve, you were determined to stick to them… or maybe that was just Champaign courage.
You were going to workout three times a week and give up on the junk food. That was an easy goal to set. Nothing but good can come of it. Or maybe you were going to quite smoking or cut back on the drinks. Seemed reasonable goals to set at the time.
Arriving at work on time every day was definitely possible until they started that road repair and the traffic ground to a halt in the morning. Well that wasn’t your fault was it. Maybe calling your parents once a week was on that list, or perhaps signing up for a personal development course to help your career get moving again.
Why is it that often within less than 90 days those heart felt resolutions have evaporated and now you feel a deep guilt (again) that they didn’t at least last until summer.
What stops you from making those changes that could empower your life? What stops you from keeping those promises you make to yourself? Why do you cling to old habits for dear life, never wanting to let go of them?
Setting goals and committing to them is one of the most challenging things to accomplish. There is an endless supply of new content produced just for you every year. In fact, did you know there are over 53,552 books on Amazon with the title: “Secrets of Success” in the title? Have a look yourself. People who want to know the secret to not just goal setting but actually sticking to the goal. Setting the goal is the easy part.
The biggest secret and one that is seldom discussed is that goals need to be broken down into small achievable steps. It is the idea of one gigantic goal that overwhelms people in short order and stops them from trying. It’s like planning to climb MT. Everest but you haven’t even managed to hike up that hill at your favorite park.
As long as you keep your eye focused on the goal and keep that in front of you every day, you will manage to get there by taking small but meaningful steps.
I heard an interesting story from a enterprising women who started a very successful weight loss club to compete competition with the more famous Weight Watchers. She set up her office in the garage of her house. That’s where she tested and assembled her product line of healthy foods and supplements and planned her marketing strategy.
Her weight loss club grew into a huge organization with the additional revenue of sales of her products in supermarkets. During an interview for a series on successful women, she said that if she had known how big her company would become, she wouldn’t have had the courage to even begin it.
That’s how our goal setting often fails us. We set our goals to be so large we fail because we lose courage to charge forward overcome with the enormity of the task. If you need to lose weight, set a realistic goal and let the incremental successes build momentum. The fact that it might have taken ten years to put on the weight is all too soon forgotten. We want to get rid of it in a month. When that doesn’t happen we give up in despair. And probably head to the fridge for comfort.
If you want to start a home business… be realistic about the financial and time commitment that will be required to gain momentum and start to see a return on the investment of time and money. Every goal is realized through the progression of small steps leading to the goal achievement. That’s why you always hear that success is a journey.
Break up your goals into small bite size chunks. Make them smaller and easier to achieve and recognize that achievement regularly. Being able to easily reach these many small successes will motivate you to keep going to reach the bigger goal that you’ve set for yourself. And that is the secret of goal achievement.
Sam Eells: Sam specializes in helping entrepreneurs and coaches build dynamite teams and attraction marketing systems that WORK. A revolutionary who teaches people how to unleash their deepest potentials for success. For free information on how to succeed as an entrepreneur or coach, create a thriving business and build your bottom line doing more of what you love, visit www.mastermindmission.
