Things You'll Need:
- Desire to Achieve
- Ability to Think and Plan
- Commitment to Success
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Step 1
Think about What You Want to Accomplish. What do you want to accomplish in education? In your career? In your personal finances? In your personal or professional life? In your relationships and family? Think what goals you might formulate in each of these areas and how you might achieve those goals. Success is more likely when you think through what it is that you want to accomplish.
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Step 2
Establish Realistic Goals. In each important area of your life and work, set realistic goals. A goal is something you want to accomplish by a certain date. Goals need to be measurable and timed so that you can hold yourself accountable as well as motivate effort. In order for you to achieve goals they must be realistic. If you don’t get the goals right at first, keep trying until you do. Your success depends on making your goals achievable.
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Step 3
Generate Strategies to Achieve Your Goals. Once you have established your goals you’ll need to assess how you will accomplish them. General approaches are termed strategies. Diet and exercise are broad strategies for achieving weight loss goals. Strategies to achieve goals like getting a promotion at work might be putting in extra hours or getting additional education. Success at work and in life doesn’t come easily for most of us. Sound strategies and sustained effort are required.
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Step 4
Develop Action Plans. Once you have decided on broad strategies designed to achieve goals you’ve established, you’ll probably need to develop specific action plans to keep you on track and to make sure that your efforts are capable of succeeding. Action plans consist of tasks (with budget and timing) you’ll need to accomplish to implement your strategies and achieve your goals. See the Resources section for an article on how to successfully develop an action plan.
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Step 5
Implement Your Plans. When implementing the plans to achieve goals you’ve set, be careful not to take on more than you can reasonably do. Not only do your goals need to be realistic, the number of goals and activities that you pursue simultaneously need to be limited to be realistic as well. A best practice might be to make real progress on one goal and action plan in an area such as work before implementing another. This sequential approach raises the chance for success by avoiding overload.
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Step 6
Monitor Your Progress. Because your goals are measurable, you should be able to track the progress you are making to achieve the goals you are pursuing. Where progress is falling short you’ll need to either revise your plan or adjust the goal, or perhaps both. Don’t get discouraged; take corrective action. Success often requires adjustments as we go.
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Step 7
Manage Your Motivation. You will most likely encounter disappointments and setbacks. That’s normal in work and in life. But you will get much further by having goals and plans than if you didn’t. Always remember that fact. Frequently review your goals and visualize the rewards for accomplishing them. If you need help maintaining a positive attitude see the article in the Resources Section on “How to Be More Positive.”
Comments
sonni57 said
on 4/1/2009 Nicely done article on how to achieve goals. We all need to be proactive and pursue with a passion.
ccard123 said
on 3/27/2009 Great advice. Goals don't seem so hard to achieve when you break them into little pieces! 5*
lydiabily said
on 3/16/2009 Setting realistic goals and managing motivation are so important in the quest to achieve goals. Good advice on not overplanning -- you can really be thrown off track by analysis paralysis.
LuckyAngel said
on 3/10/2009 Great article. I hope lots of people read it!
tachic said
on 3/7/2009 This is great advice. Thanks!