Category — Goal Setting

Recently I attended a conference, where author and life coach Brian Tracy shared three important steps on how to achieve your goals. His advice was simplicity in the purest form, and the first step yelled out to me why most people never achieve their goals. Most people, truly, never take the first step towards reaching them.

Step 1: Decide Exactly What You Want
I love the simplicity of the advice. The problem with reaching goals is most people never decide exactly what it is they want in life. Sure, they want something for a little while. Then they switch to something else. Worse yet, they just wonder through life, never really sure where they want to end up.

Do you know what your goals are for your life? Think about that question. Do you really know what all your goals are for your life? Or do you just have a few minor goals lying around hoping someday you will achieve them.

Can you answer these questions?
What condition do you want your body (health and fitness) to be in when you are 85?
What dollar amount do you want to be at financially in your business and your personal life when you are 85?
Who would you like to meet in this life that you have not yet already met?
What type of legacy do you want to leave behind as far as the person you became?

If you can’t answer these questions, it may be time to sit down and actually start writing your life goals. The Living Every Minute: Design the Life You Deserve Activity Book can help you.

Step 2: Form a Plan of How to Achieve Your Decisions
If you have already decided where you want to be at different periods in your life, what are you doing now to make sure you get there? The second most frequent obstacle people face in reaching their goals is they do not know how to plan to get from where they currently are to where they want to be. Instead, they wonder around aimlessly just expecting life to happen to them.

People often tell me they want to be rich, they want to be financially free, or they want to earn more money. You’ve heard the age old adage, “Wish in one hand and poo in the other, and see which one fills up faster.” The problem with their statements is they simply wish.

Many of the people I coach on finance literally tell me their plan for getting rich is one of the following:
1. Marry into money.
2. Inherit money at some point.
3. Win the lottery.
Of course they usually laugh after they say those words. I would laugh, but I can’t. The reason they laugh is they know their answer is a joke. The reason I don’t laugh is because I know their joke is the only true plan they have.

You can’t just wait for the perfect plan to fall into your lap to make your dreams come true. Instead, start creating a plan. Realize you will have to tweak it as you go.

If you need help starting on your plan, the Living Every Minute: Design the Life You Deserve Activity Book is designed to walk you step-by-step through writing a plan to accomplish your goals.

Step 3: Work on Your Plan Daily
The last step you have to do is actually work on your plan to reach your goals. A plan is just a piece of paper with words until action is taken. Do something every single day to take you closer to the goals you want to achieve. If you do something every single day to reach your goal, you can’t help but get closer to it.

The key is you have to do it DAILY. You can’t do it every once in a while. You can’t do it once a week. You can’t do it just Monday to Friday. You have to do it DAILY. Doing it daily keeps your momentum going. Doing it anything less allows you to find excuses and greatly hurts your momentum.

Bonuse Step: Surround Yourself with Genius
Finally, you must surround yourself with a group of people who can help you along the way to your goals. Don’t be selfish. As they help you, realize you must also be willing to help them reach theirs. I recently read a true friend is someone who knows the song of your heart, and they help you remember when you forget the words.

My partner in Living Every Minute had a passion for writing and owning her own design and publication company. I had a passion for finding a way to help other people improve their life and the financial means to back our publication. We combined forces. Now we each push each other to grow the business side of Living Every Minute, while also improving our own individual goals at the same time. There are people out there who will partner with you to help you reach your dreams. You just have to find the right connections.