Last week, I shared my 2016 goals. I love setting goals. Why? Because it’s a lot fun to dream about what’s possible in the future.
However, if you’re actually going to achieve your goals, you have to move beyond the excitement of having goals to the discipline of creating a plan and executing it.
In my experience, I have found that if you want to achieve your goals, you must do the following:
1.) Reverse Engineer Your Goals – Once you have a goal, it’s absolutely essential for you to reverse engineer your goals. Reverse engineering is when you make a list of everything you need to do in order to accomplish that goal. Take each goal that you set and write it on the top of a piece of paper. On the paper, start making a to-do list of every single action you need to take in order to accomplish that goal. Once you have all the action items, put them in the order they need to happen in and go to work on them!
2.) Learn from People who Have Done it – If you don’t know all the steps you need to take, find people who do! Brian Tracy often says, “Success leaves tracks”. Most likely, there are a lot of other people on the planet who have accomplished what you desire to accomplish. Find them and learn everything you can from them. What steps did they take to achieve that goal? What mistakes did they make? How can you avoid them?
3.) Get Accountability – I believe if you’re going to achieve everything you are capable of achieving, you’re going to need a group of like-minded people to push you and encourage you. That’s why we host Mastermind Groups with L3 Leadership. In 2015, I accomplished more goals than I ever have before. Why? Because of my mastermind group. Who do do you have in your life that is pushing you?
- If you’re interested in joining a Mastermind group with us, e-mail me atdougsmith@l3leadership.org.
4.) Do it Afraid – I’m willing to bet that 80% of the reason tat you have trouble reaching your goals isn’t because you are not capable of achieving them, but because you are afraid. You are afraid to put yourself out there, you are afraid to fail, you are afraid of rejection, you are afraid of success, you are afraid of what people will think, you are afraid of ________.
If you’re going to reach your goals, you need to learn to pursue them in spite of being afraid. My friend, Lindsey Smith, encourages people to take a walk with fear. I’ve found that once you start to do whatever it is you’re afraid of, fear disappears. Do it afraid!
5.) Schedule Execution Time – Chalene Johnson encourages people to schedule 3 hours of execution time for your goals each week. So many people don’t reach their goals because they never schedule time to work on them. What gets scheduled gets done!
6.) Prioritize Your Work ahead of Time – Once your execution time is scheduled, make sure you prioritize how you’re going to use that execution time. Based on the list you created when you reverse engineered your goal, what are the 3-5 most important tasks you need to complete during your execution time? If you’ll prioritize and execute 3-5 tasks toward your goal each week, you’ll find yourself achieving more than you ever thought possible!
7.) Learn and Adapt – As you make progress, always be learning and adapting your plan. Ask yourself questions like: How could I better use my time next week in order to make progress on my goals? What steps towards my goals am I still unsure about that I need to do some research on? Why didn’t I do everything I set out to do last week? Is there a better way to do this?
I believe if you’ll follow these seven steps with all of your goals, you’ll find yourself accomplishing more than you ever thought possible. So, what are you waiting for? Go crush it!
Questions:
- Which of these steps do you need to take in order to achieve your goals this year?
- Which steps do you struggle with?
- What other steps do you use you reach your goals?
Thoughts? Comment below!
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