Strategies for Achieving Your Goals and Improving Your Life

Are you one of those people who fail to comply with their new year’s resolutions every year? Well, you are not alone in the pool. More than half of the people who make New Year’s resolution fail to stick with it. And that’s the case with your life goals too.

Without effective strategies to achieve your goals, you can be sure to get de-tracked and fail in achieving whatever goals you set out for yourself. Your list of goals will only increase each year if previous ones will not get checked. Through planning and control, you can ensure the achievement of your goals and can improve the quality of your life. Here are some effective strategies for you.

Without effective strategies to achieve your goals, you can be sure to get de-tracked and fail in achieving whatever goals you set out for yourself

Be Specific

You need to be specific in defining your goals. As per management theories, objectives and goals need to meet the SMART criteria: specific, measurable, actionable, relevant and time-bound. You shall first identify your problem and needs for which some goal is required to be established. This will make your goal specific to your needs.

A goal shall be measurable in terms of results achieved. For example, if your goal is to lose 7 pounds each month, you need to measure your results each week and each month. To make your goal actionable, you need to identify the activity required for achieving the goal. For example, 30 minutes in the gym may be sufficient to lose 7 pounds each month.

Objectives and goals need to meet the SMART criteria: specific, measureable, actionable, relevant and time-bound.

Your actions for achieving goals shall be relevant to your problems. To make your goal time bound, you need to specify the time limit within which your goal needs to be achieved. For example, achieving the ideal weight within 7 months by spending 30 minutes in the gym every day and losing 7 pounds each month is a time-specific goal.

Create Motivation

You will not achieve your goals if you are not motivated enough to take necessary actions to achieve them. Your motivation depends upon your expectation of the desired results and the amount of effort you are willing to deploy.

For example, sticking to our gym example, if you expect that 30 minutes in the gym will be sufficient to achieve your ideal weight goal then you will push yourself to go to the gym on a daily basis. If your expectations are low with respect to the desired results, then you might start skipping days and visit the gym on an occasional basis. The higher the expectation, the higher is your motivation for achieving the results.

Make a checklist

In order to exercise greater control over your goals, you need to make a checklist. It is possible that at the time of defining your goals you were not very specific in identifying your needs. You could have missed out an opportunity that you have now identified at a later point in time.

Your goals or actions might need revision later. It is better to make a checklist of your goals, and the actions required to realize your goals need to be addressed in the very next column.

In order to exercise greater control over your goals, you need to make a checklist of all that needs to be done for realization of your goals

Encourage Yourself with Incentives

Achieving the desired goal creates satisfaction, but treating yourself with something exciting provides the added advantage of sustained motivation.

For example, gifting yourself a gadget that you always wanted to have or even a delicious meal at your favorite restaurant, signing up for horse riding, or purchasing that somewhat expensive lip gloss which you always wanted to have, is enough to keep you going in the long term. This will only add to your feeling of satisfaction and your motivation of achieving other goals will increase.

Have a Support Group

A support group can exist in many forms, such as your friends, family or even any online group that you relate to the most. It can help you by listening to your problems and sharing own experiences to guide you on the best course of action you can take to achieve your goals.

Although it’s not necessary but having people in your support group who share similar goals as yourself will provide an added advantage. For example, if you want to lose weight and you are female, then a female who has similar weight goals as yours will offer the support you require to achieve results.