Content

• Steps
• Method 1 of 2: Set Attainable Goals
• Method 2 of 2: Adhere to an Effective Strategy to Achieve Your Goal
• Tips

Regardless of whether you have big goals in life or small dreams, set goals for yourself as you achieve them. To achieve some things, you have to spend all your life, and to achieve some, a couple of three days will be enough. When your plans and dreams come true, you feel the same indescribable sense of accomplishment and dignity. Getting started with your dreams may seem daunting, but we'll show you how.

Steps

Method 1 of 2: Set Attainable Goals

1. 1 Define goals in life. Ask yourself some important questions about what you want in your life. What do you really want to achieve: today, in a year, or in your entire life? The answers to these questions can be quite general, for example, "I want to be happy", or "I want to help people." Imagine what you hope to achieve in 10, 15 or 20 years.
   • The goals can be completely different, for example, start your own business, lose weight, or one day start a family.
2. 2 Divide your life goals into smaller tasks. Divide your life into specific areas or areas that you would like to change or improve over time. These can include: career, finance, family, education, or health. First, ask yourself the question of what exactly you want to achieve in each of the areas of life within 5 years.
   • For such a life goal as: “I want to be in shape”, you can set yourself small tasks, for example: “I want to eat healthy food” or “I want to run a marathon”.
   • For such a life goal as: “I want to have my own business”, the tasks can be: “I want to learn how to effectively manage a business” and “I want to open my own bookstore”.
3. 3 Set short term goals. Now that you already roughly know what you want to achieve in a few years, you can concentrate on completing specific tasks. Set for yourself a reasonable time frame for completing tasks, in the case of short-term - no more than a year.
   • If your tasks are written down, it will be more difficult to ignore, as you will be tormented by a sense of responsibility for them.
   • The first tasks in achieving an ideal body can be such as: run 5 km or eat more vegetables.
   • To start your own business, you can set yourself simple tasks: complete accounting courses and find the perfect space for a bookstore.
4. 4 Turn your tasks into steps towards achieving your goal. In general, you must decide why you are setting this task for yourself and what it will contribute to. Here are some good questions to ask yourself: Is it worth it? Should I start it now? Do I really want this?
   • For example, if you want to get in shape in life, it might be a short-term challenge for you to take up a new sport within 6 months, but ask yourself how much it will help you run a marathon. If not, change the task so that it becomes the next step towards achieving your goal.
5. 5 Reevaluate your tasks periodically. Your life goals may not change, however, sometimes think about revising your short-term goals. Will you be able to achieve them within the given time frame? Are they still necessary in achieving your life goal? Be flexible with short-term goals.
   • Perhaps you have achieved good results in running 5 km and after a few workouts you should change your goal from “run 5 km” to “run 10 km.” Over time, you can set other goals like “run half a marathon” and then “run a marathon”.
   • To start your own business, after completing tasks such as completing accounting courses and finding premises, you can set yourself the task, for example, take a loan for a small business, buy a premises, get a license from the local administration. After purchasing or renting premises, acquire books, hire staff and open the doors of your store. Before long, you may be thinking about opening a second one.

Method 2 of 2: Adhere to an Effective Strategy to Achieve Your Goal

1. 1 Be specific about your goals. Before setting a goal, you need to know if it can be the answer to very specific questions: who, what, where, when and why. When setting a task for yourself, understand how useful it will be in achieving your life goal.
   • Being in shape has a rather vague wording. Therefore, it is worth creating a more specific goal "to run a marathon", which, in turn, is achieved through short-term goals - "to run 5 km." When you set yourself a similar task, answer the questions: who? - I what? - run 5 km, where? - in a local park, when? - within 6 weeks, why? - to achieve your goal and run a marathon.
   • In order to start your own business, create a short-term task “take accounting courses”.She can answer the following questions: who? - I what? - accounting courses, where? - in the library, when? - every Saturday for 5 weeks, why? - to manage the budget of your company.
2. 2 Create measurable tasks. In order to be able to track progress, goals must be measurable. "I'm going to walk more" is much more difficult to assess than "I'm going to do 16 laps every day." In fact, you should have several ways to measure your results.
   • “Run 5 km” is a challenge that can be evaluated. You know exactly when you need to do it. It may be necessary to create other short-term goals like “run at least 3 km three times a week”. This all works for the task set before you, after reaching which the next measurable task will be “to run 5 km a month, in 4 minutes”
   • Also, the task of “taking accounting courses” is quite measurable. These are specific activities to go and sign up for and attend lessons once a week. A less specific task is to “teach accounting,” you will never know whether you have achieved your goal or not, whether you have completed your task.
3. 3 Be realistic in setting goals. It is important to assess the situation as honestly as possible for yourself and understand how realistic the implementation of your goals is, whether you have everything to implement them. Ask yourself this question if you have enough knowledge, time, skills, or resources.
   • In order to run a marathon, you need to spend a lot of time jogging. If you don't have enough free time, this task is not acceptable for you. If so, find another task for yourself that takes less time and can help you reach your global goal.
   • If you want to open your own bookstore, but you have no experience of such work, no start-up capital, no honest understanding of how a bookstore works, you don’t like reading at all, you should probably give up your own goal, because you may not be successful.
4. 4 Prioritize. At any point in your life, you have several tasks at different stages of completion. Determining the importance of a task or goal is critical. If it turns out that you have too many tasks to complete, you will feel overwhelmed. This will lead to the fact that the final goal will never be achieved.
   • Several priorities can be selected. It helps you stay focused when opposing tasks come to the fore. If you are faced with the choice to complete one or two lower priority goals or one priority goal, you will know what to choose.
   • If you are working to get in shape and have set yourself a few short-term goals like “eat healthy food”, “run 5 km” and “swim 1 km, 3 times a week” you may not have enough time , no strength to do everything at once and you have to choose one thing. You can prioritize. If you want to run a marathon, then running 5 km will be more important than swimming 3 times a week. You can also continue to eat healthy foods as it improves your health and helps you run your marathon later.
   • If you are working on opening your own bookstore, you may need to first take out a business license or take out a loan (if needed) and only then buy books for the store.
5. 5 Track your progress. Writing in personal diaries or journals is a great way to keep track of your progress, both for personal and professional purposes. Self-assessment is the key to staying motivated to achieve your goal. This method can even inspire you to work harder.
   • Ask friends to track your progress and help you stay on track.For example, if you are training for a serious race, meet regularly with a friend who will oversee the progress of your assigned tasks.
   • If you are training for a marathon, write down in a journal or diary your accomplishments, how far and how long you ran, and how you felt about doing so. Seeing where you started will be more motivated to complete more challenging tasks.
   • It is quite difficult to track progress if you want to start your own business, however, if you write down your tasks and subtasks, it will be easier for you to track the work already done.
6. 6 Reach your goals. Allow yourself to celebrate the achievement of your goals. Use this time to track the process of achieving the goal from its beginning to the very end. If you were happy during this period of time or acquired new skills, the task at hand made sense.
   • For example, if you run 5 km, you will be happy that you did it, even if the next step is to complete the more difficult task of running a marathon.
   • It's over, when you open your store doors and make your first sale, you will be incredibly happy knowing that you have achieved your goal.
7. 7 Continue to challenge yourself. Even if you have achieved your life goal, you should not stop there, you must continue to grow and develop and set new goals and objectives for yourself.
   • Once you've run a marathon, you have to figure out what you want next. Do you want to run another marathon and improve your time? Perhaps you want to try your hand at triathlon? Or do you want to go back to running 5 and 10 km again?
   • After opening your store, do you want to take part in social events, lead literary circles or literacy circles? Perhaps you want to make more money? Maybe you should open a cafe in the store or in the next room?

Tips

• Use the SMART method to set effective goals. The SMART method is used in the work of trainers, motivation specialists, in HR departments and in the educational system to determine goals, achievements and attitudes. Each of the letters SMART is the beginning of a concept that helps in achieving the assigned tasks.