The Secret to Achieving a Goal

Have you ever wanted something really badly…you think about it, how to accomplish it, why you want it, and what else is an important component? Then life happens and you forget all about it for the time being? When it comes to mind again, later, you can’t for the life of you remember what it was or what you had decided had to be done to get to the success of that particular goal. What should you have done to remember it?

There really is no mystery, or secret, to achieving a goal. It is very straight-forward, and I know for me, the more I have on my mind the more I need to do this — WRITE IT DOWN. By writing it down when I think of it, I make sure that I have a way to remember it later and don’t have to reinvent the wheel. It’s right there in front of me.

However, one of the aspects of this miraculous achievement is something called a SMART goal. People have been debating whether this type of technique or strategy is important, but I can tell you for myself it has made a world of difference. SMART goals are ways to not only create a goal, but to give it a timeframe, and the hows, or To-Dos, of actions in which to get the tasks done, in order to complete that particular goal.

For many of you who are used to reading my blogs I will once again refer to two of my favorite movies. The first, The Wizard of Oz, shows us that if we have no particular place to go, anywhere will get us there. But when you have a goal, something you want, some place you want to go, then you set yourself a roadmap and head out in the direction that will get you there.

The second of my favorites is Gone With the Wind, and here I will remind you of Scarlet's sayings, I’ll think about that tomorrow. How often did that action she was going to think about “tomorrow” never come to pass. She did not have a specific goal in mind, simply that she would at a later date try and figure out an answer to her question or dilemma.

I like it when I am given the tools to get things done, and when you Google SMART goals there are many online printable templates. I’m old school and still like to write things down. This has two benefits: the first is the act of writing it down in and of itself. That helps the mind to coalesce what it’s thinking about and gives it some weight. Secondly, when it’s written down, you can then take that piece of paper and place it somewhere where you can look at it regularly. By seeing it over and over again, it makes it more urgent to complete.

I suggest that you don’t take my word for this secret formula, but try it out for yourself and see how well it works. I’ll bet that you’ll see some wonderful results. Of course there are other things that need to be kept in mind — for instance, don’t make the goal TOO difficult, it won’t get completed and you’ll get frustrated and not try again. On the other hand, don’t make it too simple — you need to stretch a bit if you want to have your business succeed long term. But keep those things in mind, do your strategy goal planning and I bet you’ll get some wonderful results!