Royane Real

Author of  “How You Can Be Smarter - Use Your Brain to Learn Faster, Remember Better and Be More Creative”   

 

Here is what I have discovered about setting and achieving goals:

 

- Goals are easier to achieve when you know exactly why you want to accomplish them.

- Goals are easier to achieve when you feel very strong emotions about the outcome.   

- Goals are easier to achieve when you break down your goal into measurable steps.

 

For example, here’s a goal that you might have for yourself, “I will work harder so that my kids can have a chance to go to college” 

 

Sending your kids to college is a commendable goal, but the way you have expressed this goal is very vague.  It is not specific enough.  It doesn’t give you real targets to aim for.  It won’t keep you fired up over the next two years.

 

It’s always possible to get yourself to work harder, but working harder doesn’t mean that you get closer to accomplishing the desired outcome.  In fact, working harder can keep you stuck in the same place unless you learn how to work smarter. 

 

To make this goal work better, you will need to put some numbers on it, and you need to create a time line.  Examine your goal and see which parts of it can be made very specific and measurable.  That’s a beginning step to take.

 

Don’t just tell yourself, “I will work  harder”.  Instead,  replace this thought with the statement, “Over the next two years I will make an extra two thousand a month over what I am making now so that I can put together the money my children will need to have so they can go to college.”

 

This gives you a much clearer idea of where you are going and what you need to do to get there.

 

With this more specific goal, you can ask yourself, “How many extra sales will I need to make, over and above what I am making now?

You can also ask yourself, “If I currently make one sale for every twenty customers I talk to, how can I make more sales?  How can I make more money from these sales?”

Will you sell more expensive products?  Will you be more successful in closing sales?  Will you make more cold calls?  Will you ask for referrals?  Will you call previous customers again?   Creating a more specific goal with targets will jumpstart your brain into coming up with better and more creative ideas.

It may take you some time to really clarify your goals, to understand what you want, why you want it, and how you will get there.

Create some very specific sub-goals that you can measure along the way.  Be clear about what actions you will need to take to achieve these sub-goals.

 

We can’t always see clearly at the beginning of a project where it is going to take us, and what we have to do to get there. 

 

That’s because sometimes the real world doesn’t match the plan we cooked up in our mind.  Sometimes we have to make adjustments to our goals, big adjustments.

That is why some success coaches recommend that instead of following the motto, “Ready! Aim! Fire!”  we may need to revise that motto a bit.

Sometimes we need to use the other motto, “Ready! Fire!  Aim!” 

The reason for that is that once we are actually implementing our plan, we can see where our initial plans fell short, and where they need to be revised.

 

It won’t happen without some action on your part.  It won’t happen if you spend all your time making plans, and none of your time taking action.

 

Goals without actions won’t get you anywhere, and actions without goals won’t get you anywhere. 

You need to learn to blend your goals and your actions together.

This article was written by Royane Real, author of  “How You Can Be Smarter - Use Your Brain to Learn Faster, Remember Better and Be More Creative”    

Do you want to learn how to boost your brain power?  Improve your learning and memory?  Download it today at http://www.lulu.com/real