The Secret to Setting and Achieving Goals!

Hey guys!

I've been working hard on areas of my business, but one of which is goal setting and achieving. Basically, I found myself at a point where I lost a bit of direction and didn't know what to do to make that "next step" happen in my journey. Then I realised this occured because I didn't have any proper goals and plans set out to achieve them.

So I did lots of research into this stuff, and came out with a few methods, which I mixed together and pretty much used to great success. The best part is that it didn't just work in business but also life. I applied and keep applying it to anything and everything I want to achieve in the future.

Today, I decided to help out you guys that might be losing a bit of direction in whatever it is you want to achieve. So here's my process of making goals, and then planning to achieve them! I'll tell you which part is the "secret" as well, the thing which I found made a huge difference in winners and losers in the long term.

Here it goes, I've broken it up into 3 stages:

STAGE 1: Brainstorming what you want

Basically in this step what I do is I just sit down with some paper and think, what do I want in life? What do I want from life?

So if you apply this to business, you could ask, why am I doing this business? Who is it supposed to benefit? Am I doing it for the money or to help people? Do I want to be the best? Or just earn enough to manage along?

You need to sit back and say, WHAT do I WANT? This is my favourite part, because it's like you're making wishes. You are basically going to pick right now, what you want in your life in the future.

For my business, for example, when I started I was having things like "I want to have a passive income, and be able to use my time to spend with the family, and help others, etc."

Say you wanted to lose a few pounds, well "I want to increase my overall health and fitness, so I can run up the stairs without huffing and puffing, or play with the kids without losing breath in just a few minutes."

Realistically, make your wishes and write them down.

STAGE 2: Setting the goals

Now that we know what we want to do, and where we want to go, we have to turn them into goals. The purpose is to give us a "finish line" in the whole journey.

Here are the keys to setting goals (commonly known as SMART - some of letters can stand for a few things, and I'm sure most of you would have heard about SMART before. But for those who haven't read and keep note).

Goals must be:

- Specific: Make the goal specific. So not "I want to be rich", instead, "I want to earn $120,000 in the next year". Answer the following. Who is involved in making the goal possible? What is the goal being achieved for? Where will this goal achieving take place? When will it happen? Why do you want to achieve this goal? How are you going to do it? (I will speak more about how to achieve goals a little bit later on in this post).


- Measureable: You need to have a way to measure your goal. Back to the previous example, note that you won't be able to tell when you have achieved "richness", but you CAN tell when you have earned $120,000.


- Achievable: Don't make an unrealistic goal like "I want to earn 6 figures next month" when you aren't even earning anything right now. Make it achievable. I started my online IM journey with a goal of getting from $0 per week at Day 1, to getting to $400 per week by the end of the next 4 months. It was on the edge of being not achievable, but still, with the right plans and work (lots of outsourcing), it was possible to do this (currently at the date of post, my challenge is still going on, for those interested, check out my signature).


- Realistic/Relevant: There are two factors that apply here. Firstly, the goal must be realistic. It will be something you're going to have to work so hard at, so you must be willing to work at it. Also it has to be relevant to a bigger picture. eg. Some people make goals of losing 50 lbs in a year. This is definitely realistic, but what is it relevant to? What's the bigger picture? Maybe the person wants to increase their overall fitness because they would like to run a martahon next year, or maybe they want to increase their health because it's getting a little be out of control? The point is, goals must be part of a bigger picture, which you can always look back at for the ultimate motivational kick. This is key in a successful goal. If it means nothing to you, other than just "something you'd like to do", when the going gets tough, you probably will quit. So it needs to have some big meaning to you.



- Timely: Your goal MUST MUST MUST have a time frame! Without a time frame, it's highly likely that you won't achieve the goal because there's no deadline or pressure to achieve it before a certain time!
So you should end up with a few goals now. Some may take months, some years. The next step is to break these down. I'm going to take a goal like, "Lose 50 lbs in the next 12 months" as an example. You have a deadline, and there's no going back!


STAGE 3: The SECRET (Really it's just successful planning)

Here's the part people fail to do. They make the goal, say "Lose 50 lbs in 12 months" and then just forget it after a few weeks. It's just like every new years resolution that ends up without and long term progress. Why does this happen? Because there was no planning that happened. So here's what I do:


I take the goal, let's use the 50 lbs in 12 months one and break it down. Okay, 50 lbs in 12 months means approx. 4-5 lbs a month. So write that down too. "Lose 4-5 lbs this month."



You've now broken your BIG MAIN goal into a smaller one. You can then break that goal down further to: "Lose 1+ lbs a week."



So we've got it smaller now, but still, it's just a target isn't it? How can we apply this...


This is what you do. You can break that goal even further to something practical like:


- "Visit the gym 3 times a week for 1 hour sessions".
- "Walk 10,000 + steps a day".
- "Eat 3 healthy meals a day, and only snack on fruits during the day, with exception to a Sunday, when I can have 1 meal or snack which is slightly less healthy".
- "Perform weight training twice a week".
- "Run 30min every morning on Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday".


Those above things were just random suggestions that would help you to lose that 1 lb a week. But the point I am trying to get across here is, if you can break that big MAIN goal right down into the smallest and most littlest possible thing. All you have to do is just the little things. Suddenly without realising it, the big thing will eventually be closer and closer to attain.


The other great benefit is that it takes a target like "Become or achieve this by this time" and makes it practical, "Do X TODAY, Do Y TOMORROW".


So that's it guys, if you have questions just ask em below, and I'll get back to you. Or send me a PM



I would love to hear any of your goal setting stories or ways you plan your goals out below as well!