7 Powerful Steps to Achieve Your Goals
Do you set goals for yourself? Recently, I suggested to my daughter that she set herself a goal related to her schoolwork. But she told me that she didn’t want to set a goal because if she didn’t achieve it, she’d feel bad about herself.
I’ve heard this often from people, and it’s a fair comment. However, the problem is that a lot of focus is often put on creating a goal, but many other important steps are usually missed out.
Below I outline 7 powerful steps that you need to take to get you doing and achieving the things you really want in life.
Know your values
Before setting goals for yourself, do you know what your values are? Values are about how you want to be, what really matters to you. They are the principles that guide you through your life. For example, leading an active lifestyle might be an important value for you. This is an ongoing process – not something you can ‘achieve’, but rather a way to live.
When you know what your values are, it becomes easier to focus on the things that matter to you.
2. Align your goals to your values
Goals, on the other hand, are outcomes that can be completed or achieved. Losing a certain amount of weight could be a goal. It is something that can be completed.
What is important when setting goals is that they align to your values. When you align your goals to your values, you ensure that you are doing things that truly matter to you. Perhaps you can recall a time when you tried to do something that didn’t align to your values – how did that feel? How successful were you?
Aligning your goals to your values doesn’t necessarily make the goal easier to achieve. It will, however, help give you the strength to push through when it feels hard.
3. Set SMART goals
You’ve probably heard that goals should be SMART goals, i.e.
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-bound
And they absolutely should be. For example, for someone looking to lose weight, their SMART goal could be something like this:
‘I will lose 1 stone in the next 4 months.’
The problem is that just setting the goal, doesn’t mean it will be achieved. It is the next step that is crucially important to being able to achieve your goal, and to actually living by your values.
4. Develop a system and focus on it
Once you’ve set your goal, you need to work out what actions you need to take and, specifically, what system and habits you need to implement to get you to your goal.
For example, to lose weight, you will need to plan what exercise you will do and when, what food you need to eat, what food you might need to eat less of. Take your time to focus on this because it is building the system, the habits that you will do on a regular basis, that will get you to your goal, and, crucially, to maintaining your goal and living by your values.
Don’t be afraid to start small. Maybe you will only exercise for 5 minutes a day to start with or make one small change to your diet. The key is to build consistency in the behaviour. Over time, you can increase the time or quantity of it.
5. Validate your goal and system
Now that you’ve defined your goal and how you will achieve it, review it against the following criteria:
Is it within your control? Outcome goals often involve factors beyond our control. E.g. you may have a goal to make a certain amount of income. However, factors such as the economy, or competition, could affect this. Your system, the actions that you will regularly take, are within your control however.
Plan for obstacles. We can’t foresee every eventuality but taking some time to consider what obstacles you could face and how you will overcome them can be very helpful. This can be both external obstacles, but also internal, such as feeling too tired to go and do the exercise that you’ve planned.
Check that you have set ‘live’ person’s goals. Have you set any goals that focus on what you’re not going to do, such as stop eating chocolate? Stop shouting at the children? Psychologists refer to these as ‘dead person’s goals’ because, basically, a dead person could do them very well! When you set a ‘live’ person’s goal, you are focusing on what you will do instead of the thing you want to stop, and this makes stopping the bad habit much more effective. For example, rather than ‘stop eating chocolate’, your goal might be ‘When I feel like eating chocolate, I will eat a piece of fruit.’
6. Visualise it
This step can really help to both increase your motivation to get going and make it easier for you to do the actual task.
Research shows that when we use our imagination to visualise something, our brains are activated in much the same way as when we’re doing something for real. Additionally, the more that we rehearse a particular behaviour or action, the stronger the associated neural pathways become in our brains.
This is one of the reasons why hypnosis is so powerful.
When using visualisation to support goal achievement, it is important to include the following areas in the visualisation:
a. Imagine achieving the goal – what does it look like, how does it feel? Use as much sensory information as possible.
b. Rehearse the actions you need to take. Really focus on the details. See and feel the benefits of taking action.
You can use visualisation as often as you like to keep you focused and motivated. When I work with clients, they receive their own, personal hypnosis recording to listen to on a regular basis.
7. Take action! Consistently.
This, of course, is the most important step! Keep your focus on taking the actions consistently rather than your end goal. Reward yourself for taking action and for the progress you’re making.
Setting goals often involves making best guesses as to how quickly something can be done or to what can be achieved. Often, we are overly optimistic about how long something will take. However, when you focus on consistently doing the actions that you need to do, you are giving yourself the best chance of achieving your goal and you are living by your values.
If you’d like help in identifying your values, setting your goals, or would like your own personalised hypnosis session to help you visualise your goal and give you the best chance of success, click here to arrange a call.
