Goals: What Are They and How To Do Them Well

Goals, ew.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever thrown up in your mouth a little listening to someone talk about their “amazing new year’s resolution”.

• She’s got her work out hat on.
• Her workout yoga pants (all black).
• She’s wearing those mandatory neon yellow and pink running shoes.
• A slight glisten on her skin from her morning jog sweat.

And now she’s standing in line, in front of you at the checkout, with nothing but an armful of avocado and Ezekiel bread.

You despise her and admire her at the same time.

She has what you want, but you don’t like that she has it, but you don’t.

What’s her secret?

She sets goals for herself.

Not just a new year’s resolution, but goals. An intricate and complicated system of the best achievement and accomplishment based technology there is.

Her secrets are compiled below.

What are Goals?

The object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result.

Goals

Like the 5th ninja turtle – I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again! Humans are progress oriented creatures.

Progress has a tenacious grip on our main feel-good neurotransmitters.

When we make progress our brain rewards us, and when we fail to make progress, we sink into a slump that causes depression and life satisfaction.

Life is many things, but for the sake of this example, let’s understand that life is a series of desires and actions taken toward those desires for the sake of the growth of the organism.

In other words

• Because we want we do.

• Because we do, we get.

• And because we get and become dissatisfied with remaining there, we desire more, do more and get more.

Goals are a result that represents the achievement we desire. When you set goals, you are basically saying, “these are the experiences I want. This is the life I desire. This is how I prefer to be and live”.

Goals, when done properly, are the key to living a richer life.

They are results that represent growth, that feed us the juicy life experiences we live for each day.

And when we bulldoze through life’s daily progress, we arrive at greater realizations of our potential and what life has to offer.

Why Are Goals Important?

Goals are the simple part of the machine that nobody cares about.

The unsung hero, like salt, that nobody ever acknowledges when there is enough of, but become outraged when it’s missing.

Goals are what take our current ceiling and make it our future floor.

Humans, by nature, are experiencers.

This world is composed of two parts: the experienced and the experiencer.

Not only this but we as the experiencer desire to experience more, every day and all day.

Factually, we consume experiences more so than food even.

When experiences are no longer satisfying we have a choice:

1. To get more

1. Or to starve

Those who choose to starve, pretend like staying the same is satisfying.

But when a person chooses to get more, they level life’s obstacles, speed passed their competition and so so habitually, making them appear superhuman.

They weren’t bitten by something radioactive: they have a system!

How Many Types of Goals Are There?

The goal you set and its goal type will be decided by the result it’s designed to achieve and what for. Here are some different types of goals just to give you an idea.

• Business goals

• Personal goals

• Group goals

• Student goals

• Family goals

• Life goals

• Long-term goals

• Medium Term goals

• Short term goals

• New skills goals

• Kicking habits goals

• Personal acquisition goals

There are are a million different desires for us as individuals, so could come up with just as many types of goals to fit each of those circumstances.

But here are the most commonly used goals by the average person

• Visionary goals: The destination, represented by an idea, “I would like my life to be like this”
• Long term goals: Huge steps needed to accomplish the vision you have

• Medium term goals: Stepping stones on the way to your long-term goals
• Short term goals: Your medium term goals broken up into manageable, bite-sized chunks

What Kind of Person Achieves Their Goals?

So here is the real question: Why do some achieve their goals and others do not?

A better question, is why does it seem like those who are rich in goals are only getting richer and those who are poor in goals get trampled on?

• Why does he/she have everything they want, do they really deserve all that?

• Why can’t I have a life like that?

• Why is it so hard for me to accomplish simple things I desire in life?

• I want that house, I want this kind of love in my life, I want and need them, so how do I get them?

If you’ve ever asked these questions, looking at someone who has everything they want can be irritating as hell.

Not only that, but they make it look easy don’t they? (queue vomit)

And you can almost start to resent them for it.

They just smile, because they know they’re good.

They know they’ve got what they want, and others look upon them with envy.

They’re so good at what they do, they have haters. Real haters and they love every minute of it.

But the secret is that they have a formula.

A little secret they don’t share with you.

All they did was start to embody more and more of what “someone who achieves their goals” is.

You see, life is about “give and take”. So if you want life to give you the results you desire, you need to be OK with giving life what it wants in return.

Normally all life wants is:

• Someone who is willing to put in the effort

• A person who will appreciate the gift once they have it

• Someone who will use the gift well.

Think of life as a person. Would you give anything at all, to a person who wasn’t willing to work for it, didn’t appreciate it and would just waste it after you left?

Goal Setting requirements

1. That you are willing to be clear:

Your goal is your result.

Your result is your destination.

For a destination, you need a map to follow along the way.

And for a roadmap, you require a starting point and other important details.

Do you see now why being clear and concise about your goals is essential?

2. Without clarity of purpose, you will waste time and energy on things that are irrelevant to you.

Being clear during your goal setting and achieving process allows you to allocate your energy only to what matters.

Otherwise, you’ll be running around to everything shiny that comes up.

3. That you are willing to put in consistent and worthy effort:

Does anyone gain muscle working out “every once in a while”?

4. That you are willing to adapt:

People who are successful achievers understand this simple idea. Success is a formula.

Failure is nothing but the absence of the “Y” part of the equation.

Adaptation means you are willing to understand, that when “Z” is not what you want, you just need to tweak the “Y” until it works.

Further into the  “Y”

• Are you doing this with the right people? Who else is required? Who should you get advice from? Are you prepared for this?

• Are you doing the right activity even? Do you have a solid plan of action? What are you doing that could be better? What are you doing that’s wrong altogether?

• Are you doing this for the right reasons? How intrinsic are the results you get? Are they just superficial?

• Are you in the right environment for this? Surrounded by the right kind of support? Are you getting your information from the right place?

• Are you doing this at the right time of day? Are you in the right season of life to achieve this goal? Is this an expansive time in your life or a refinement time in your life? How long should this be taking you? How long does it take others?

Goal Setting Success Qualities

Authentic:

Goals need to be heart-centred or they’ll just burn you out. Don’t set goals just to “keep up with the jones’s”. Your goals need to be intrinsically and extrinsically rewarding for you to stick with them in the long term.

Honest:

You need to be thoroughly honest with yourself.

• No, “I’ll do it tomorrow”

• No half-assed effort

• Don’t tell yourself nonsense like “Well, I did my best” when you know you took it easy on yourself.

Goals required dedication. And to be dedicated you need to be honest about the effort you’re putting forth.

Challenge-Seeking:

Who doesn’t love a good challenge? Your brain, that’s who.

But in order to achieve anything in life, you’ll have to be smart enough to work around or through your brain’s desire for an easy life.

• Our brain likes to budget brain sugar (glucose) so that we always have a supply

• Our brain likes to shut us and our will to put forth effort down when we are running on “empty”

• When something feels stressful in your mind, your brain is gonna try and keep you from doing that thing.

You can either scream like a saiyan and push through it, or try one of the many brain hacks available for ending procrastination completely. 

Thoughtful:

Stack the odds in your favour and stockpile as much information on your goal as possible.

Start by asking yourself thoughtful questions:

• Who will be involved in reaching my goal? Only me? Or others as well?

• Who has done this before me? How long did it take them? How long do I think I could do it in?

• How will the results change how I see myself? How will others see me when I win this goal setting game?

• Is this goal comprehensive? Does it accomplish several things for me at once?

• How much am I willing to sweat and bleed for this goal? Will I quit when it gets tough? What kind of grit is required to accomplish this?

Patient:

Results don’t come overnight. Sometimes the world needs a bit of time to catch up with the new you who’s getting after it.

So understand what effort brings the results you want, then put forth that effort consistently while understanding when you should see results.

Dreamer:

People who set, and achieve meaningful goals that enrich their lives are often dreamers.

Not wishy-washy hippies, but people who like to test the limits of their own potential.

They enjoy thinking that “the possibilities are endless” and, even if that’s not entirely true, they certainly get after their goals thinking that there’s no force on earth that could stop them.

Grateful:

High octane goal crushing machines are not just hulk like achievers with no soft side. Buried deep is a serious appreciation for all life has to offer.

Even you reading this now have so much to be appreciative of. If not the results you don’t have yet, then the information that it’s possible in the first place.

Everybody does the best with the resources they have. One of the greatest resources is knowledge on how to improve our lives.

Humble:

Many confused the world humility with representing the qualities of weak, meak, and no backbone types.

A saint in the early 1900s described humility in the most beautiful way I’ve ever found.

“True humility is knowing one’s ACTUAL position and acting accordingly”

Bhaktivinoda Thakur

Knowing one’s actual position means understanding yourself on a deep level. You want to know your strengths, otherwise, how will you know what weapons to choose?

You want to know your weaknesses, otherwise, where will you put your armor?

You need to understand and be honest about what you know and what you don’t know.

• Being humble means you offer your knowledge to those who know less

• Learn from those who know more

• Share with those who are about the same

Faithful:

Not necessarily in some deity, but in the process of achievement itself.

When we set out to achieve goals of any kind, doubt will inevitably creep into our experience on some level.

When that happens, our faith in the process will keep us going.

Many have come before you who’ve done it, and millions will come after you.

Success and achievement are not awarded to people who are special, they are given to those who follow the rules.

When you are goal setting, remember, there is nothing special about you that makes you fail, there is only you not combining the right ingredients to bake a decent success cake.

Committed:

Ever heard of the shotgun method? Starting a bunch of things and never committing to any of them.

I do not recommend it.

If you figure out something to set a goal for, that is deeply rewarding to you, and are willing to go after it, then there is no reason you shouldn’t commit to it wholeheartedly.

Goal Setting Behaviors

Schedule your day around your goals

Ever notice you get cranky when you’ve been without food? Your body requires a certain amount of resources to function and when you’re low on them (at the end of the day) it’s much easier to falter.

As much as possible, try to do your important goal related tasks in the morning when you can fight off procrastination etc…easier.

Eliminate all the junk in your life

Everything in your life takes up space. If not literally, then energetically.

Think of yourself as having space, and then identify what space in your life your goal occupies.

Whatever is currently in it’s space will need to be removed and replaced.

Like eating junk food being replaced with eating healthy.

Embrace things favorable to winning

It’s not enough to avoid all the bad stuff.

It’s better to have some weapons in your arsenal as well.

Make a list of things that will ensure your success: like joining a support group, or a gym.

Keep good company

• Do they believe you can achieve what you desire?

• Do they have big desires of their own?

• Are they constantly trying to talk you out of it or convince you that you’re wasting your time?

These are all things to ask yourself when deciding whether or not your environment is conducive for success.

Push through the beginning inertia

Most things are hard in the beginning.

Walking, running, riding a bicycle, spelling basic words, are all things we struggled with first, but are easy for us now.

When you first started to drive, there were a million things to think about. Now you just sit in the car and drive.

An object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an unequal and opposite force.

This is true with matter, and also true with you and your goals.

When we set our goals, we have a habit of doing something else, other than the goal. So the first part when our behaviour changes can be challenging.

You just need to push through enough to when it starts to get easier. It always happens this way.

The Best Goal Setting Tools

You’ve heard of Batman right? No superpowers, just an awesome set of tools.

Here is a small list of things I know will make you a goal setting monster.

A decent planner

Setting a goal and achieving it with ease requires a concrete plan. Of that, there is no doubt.

It’s seriously a requirement.

But for years I wasted so much time on blank 8 x 11 sheets in my own notebook when brilliant people are creating their own templates and just handing them out.

How did I not know about this?!

A goal setting planner is a downloadable guide that has you fill in all the necessary information, go through certain exercises and thought processes such that you easily cover all your bases and come out on top.

It makes everything so much easier, and you don’t have to worry about leaving anything out or forgetting something.

>>>>>>Get my favorite goals planner here.<<<<<<

A whiteboard

I prefer a whiteboard, because it’s really easy to just walk over to it and write something

• Something you want to remember

• Something that will inspire you

• Some planning you want to do

• Whiteboards even make good vision boards

Goal Setting Applications

• Way of life

• AnyDo

• Wunderlust

• Momentum

• Strides

• Goals on Track

• Coach.Me

• ATracker

Inspiration to keep you in the mood

Hang up reminders everywhere

Things that are good to refocus your mind are

• Vision board

• Images of what you want

• Quotes from those who have done it 

• Adages from those who believe the same as you do

• Promises you want to keep to yourself

• The goals themselves

How to properly set your goals

Follow these easy steps to ensure your goal setting success.

1. Believe in yourself

Not in a wishy-washy way. But maintain believe that the process works, and it will work for you as well if you follow the rules.

2. Visualize

Create the roadmap in your mind, and keep it there for several minutes each day. Knowing what your success looks like is a tool you can use to get their faster and easier, with less detours along the way.

3. Purpose

Have you ever heard of a mission statement?

Normally, companies and organizations will have a statement that their group stands by.

It represents the company vision, morals, and overall reason for existing in the first place.

It’s a “This is what we are about, and what we’re here to do” statement.

Develop your mission statement.

When you do, you will know exactly what to say yes, and what to say no to as you journey toward the results you desire.

It’s well known that groups, and individuals without a clear understanding of their purpose, end up wasting time, energy and just run themselves in circles.

>>>>Learn how to develop a mission statement here.<<<<<

4. Write it down

Writing your goals down and making an effort to recording them is the easiest way to make them “real”.

When everything is on paper it’s easy to feel like you’re on the path to something great.

Post-it notes on the wall with your goal written on them results plastered on excel sheets and inside journals are all wonderful way to take what’s in your mind and see it take shape.

5. Commit

Don’t be half.

Not half goals, half-assed, or half anything.

Nobody wants a half, they want the whole. If you’re not in it 100% nobody will care.

6. Stay Focused

Seriously focused. Even dangerously focused.

When the CEO of Amazon was a little boy in school, they had to physically move him around the room when it was time to change activities because he was so focused.

Focused like a magnifying glass harnessing the sun’s rays to burn a hole in a leaf.

7. Create an Action plan

Action plans are easy.

Just make a simple one with all your nouns included

• Who am I doing this with? Who’s participation is necessary

• What am I/are we doing?

• Where are we doing it at?

• Why am I doing it in the first place?

• When will I do it? What time of day? How long will it take?

Include a time frame, milestones along the way, and individual steps to make sure you stay on track.

Get a simple Action plan template here for free.

8. Hold yourself accountable

Make sure you get it done, and no excuses.

• You are accountable to yourself primarily.

• Keep the promises you make to yourself

• Make sure you’re behaving like your goal is important. Give it a priority in your life

• Record your success and celebrate it

• Analyze your progress and make sure you achieve your objectives

Find clever ways to keep yourself accountable by eliminating opportunities to give in, and making sure you’re in circumstances that will fuel your success.

If you’re trying to cut out junk food, don’t bring it home with you.

If you’re trying to lose weight or work out more, use the small gym at work before you come home and get in your pyjamas.

Use common sense, and remember that your choices get you your results.

Make good choices, get good results. Easy.

9. Start something right now

And I mean literally as you read this. You can start by reading this article on procrastination, which will help you beat the urge to snooze on your goals.

• READ: How To Stop Procrastinating and Make Starting Easy

But seriously, when you have a brilliant idea or a goal in mind that you would like to achieve in the future, find something easy and small you can do to set yourself on that course right now.

It could be as simple as doing some research on the topic for five minutes.

10. Adapt, review, experiment & adjust

We know the goal setting formula works, but there may be times when you need to adapt and adjust to make it work for your specific situation.

When you don’t get the results you want, the best thing you can do first is to sit and think about how you can change things up.

Too many times, we fail once and give up because we think it will never work.

But almost nothing works the first time. What are the odds, honestly?

Everything is a combination of variables, and with the right formula, and the fortitude to stick it out, you can push through and create a seriously awesome and empowered life.

Good luck.

What to do now

Get “Set your Goals The Right Way” 

An easy 10 step guide to make sure you don’t miss anything, and start with your best foot forward.

Get it here.

Get the planner

The Slay Your Goals Planner is the most comprehensive printable goal setting planner on the internet.

Literally a fact.

• Avoid the confusion that comes with goal setting
• Be certain that every step you’re taking is the right one for you
• Understand what you need to do this year, this month, this week, and today to stay on track
• Know yourself on a deeper level and avoid wasting life on goals that don’t matter to you.

Get it here. >>>Slay Your Goals Planner<<<

Read these articles

• How To Stop Procrastinating
• How To Unlock Your Brain for High Energy Goal Setting
• 7 Parasitic Behaviors Slowing You Down
• 7 Unstoppable Secrets to Resist Temptation
• How to Set Life on Fire by Being Self Motivated
• How Motivation Works and How to Harness It