3 simple steps to achieve your goals any time
A simple 3 step approach to achieving your goals, a) clarify b) plan d) execute
It’s the time of year when you are looking to set new resolutions. But mostly we don’t follow through.
According to a psychology study out of 200 new year’s resolvers 77% maintained for 1 week but only 19% for 2 years.
So don’t wait for a new year to set up a resolution, you can achieve your goal any time. Here is a simple 3 steps approach, you can set as an individual or as a family, or as a group. You can also have goals for a 6-year-old kid, they love it to have goals and rewards but have achievable and fun goals for them.
Download: if you would like use the excel sheet illustrated above, it can be downloaded here
Step 1: Clarify your goals and priorities
The first step in achieving a goal is to clarify the goals and the priority.
a) List out all goals you would like to achieve on a piece of paper or on a notepad on a computer.
Your goals can be I want to improve my health, I want to spend more time with kids, I want to change the job, I want to learn music
b) Set priority for each goal and sort by priority. Be ruthless in setting priorities, ask questions such as, if the world ends in the next 3 months is this something you want to do in the next 3 months, does your current environment supports your goal.
c) Select the top 3 goals from the prioritized list
If you want to take away one thing from this article, just do the “clarify your goals and priorities” exercise, not in your mind but on a piece of paper. It was the most beneficial exercise in my experience and the feedback received from my network and friends was hugely positive.
Step 2: Plan to achieve the goal
In the second step, make your goal more specific, (the more specific and narrow the better) and prepare a plan to achieve the goal. At a minimum list the goal, when you want to start, your target date to achieve and how much time you plan to spend, and the time of the day. You can also develop a detailed plan based on your research on actions required to achieve your goal.
Step 3: Execute the goal as per the plan
Work the amount of time required as planned for each goal. A 1% improvement every day is progress compared to doing nothing. To read more on the 1% rule refer continuous improvement article by James Clear author of Atomic Habits. Every day you made the progress mark as 1 and the day you didn’t mark 0, you can record your progress on a calendar or excel sheet.
You can see the results of how 1% improvement daily makes you better and brings you closer to your goal compared with the day you begin.
Do this anytime, anything you would like to achieve, don’t leave your goals to remain dreams and end up as regrets.
Download: if you would like use the excel sheet illustrated above, it can be downloaded here
Two excellent book recommendations to understand more on goal setting and to form good habits.
Thank you for reading this article — I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to comment, share it or simply use the link and let me know what you think about it.
