GOALS REVISED

Did You Complete Your New Year's Goals?

As the end of the year rolls around again many people are feeling harassed by those annoying pokes and prods.

“So, did you complete your new year’s resolution? Huh? Did ya? Did ya?”

A part of you wants to scowl at them and tell them to go away but you instead you conjure up excuses as to why you didn’t in fact fulfill your year’s resolutions. Inside however, you’re thinking, why didn’t I do that? If this person can complete his resolutions why can’t I follow through on mine? Every year we create grand aspirations for the year ahead and then either forget, fail or don’t even try. Not much different from that moment when you’re falling asleep and you promise yourself that starting tomorrow you’ll commence a changed lifestyle with running, the gym and healthy eating and by noon you’re eating a bag of potato chips. Frustrated and angry, you resign yourself to the notion that success is a lofty goal that is altogether unachievable. But if this was true, how are there so many successful people, ones who have achieved their aspirations and are striving towards even bigger ones? Clearly you can achieve the goals and resolutions you set for yourself at the beginning of the year or late at night. The keys are in motivation, realism and accountability.

Motivation as described above is altogether available. We’ve all been in the situation where we’re lying in bed and the urge strikes, to either get up the next morning and go for a run, or to eat a healthy breakfast or to go to the gym four times a week…starting tomorrow, only to wake up and find yourself falling into the same routine. Motivation needs to be present throughout the process. The end goal has to be always in your sight. One good way of doing this is to outline and focus on the benefits that achieving your goal would bring. If it’s losing weight it could be better self-esteem, a healthier lifestyle, fitting into clothes you want or even more attraction from the opposite sex. In the business world a strong job or growing a healthy business can bring lots of tangible rewards. A better house, a car you’ve always wanted or doing more things with your family, be it a big vacation or better quality of life for them. We know that these things will not happen overnight but if you have tangible rewards to focus on motivation becomes a lot easier. This motivation is crucial because in order to achieve success there will invariably be pain. Pain is a key element of achieving goals. If it were easy and there was no pain or sacrifice everyone would do it. You haven’t chosen something easy, you’ve chosen a goal that will lead you on a road of sacrifice, discipline and potential pain. You’re going to have to sacrifice sleep, your time and luxuries in order to achieve success. I guarantee there isn’t one successful person who didn’t have some sort of obstacle that they had to overcome. The UFC Featherweight Champion, Connor McGregor says that he is not a skilled fighter despite being the pound for pound top fighter in the world. He states that that’s not how he became the champion. Connor says that he obsessed and that’s why he is the champion. Obsession and focus has fueled every training session and every match. He puts in his work and then some every day because he has an obsession with being great; with being successful. That’s how successful people look at their goals. You have to be obsessed with the idea of succeeding before you start your journey of potential pain and discipline. This means that you could lose sleep, you will lose some of the luxuries you have come to love and you will lose free time. But if you truly are obsessed and focused on your goals; success can be yours.

Realism is important when it comes to establishing your goals. While it’s always good to strive for greater things, there are from time to time a variety of factors which make achieving that particular dream impractical or altogether impossible. As such, we must make our goals realistic in two different ways. First we must look at the overall picture. If your goal is to have a job by the end of the day and you’re just starting to look, chances are you probably won’t have one that isn’t flipping burgers. You have to give yourself time to achieve your goals. A more realistic one would be a job by the end of the month. This gives you time to start looking, interview properly and thoroughly search out the job that you want. Your goals become more realistic by providing a timeline that makes sense.  If your goal is to make a million dollars in sales by the end of the quarter and you’re a start-up in your garage, chances are you won’t be successful. This is not to say this is impossible as it can happen to a select few but it’s very rare and somewhat self-defeating to create goals that you do not truly have a hope in achieving. Instead for example,   look to increase or attain a percentage of market share by the end of the year. This does not mean that you pick an easy goal because that is only cheating yourself. Pick something hard, something that you will have to sacrifice and strive for. Call it a stretch goal because you will indeed need to stretch to achieve it.

The second way that your goals need to have realism is to break them down into tangible milestones. If you set milestone goals the end picture won’t seem as far away. This can help you stay motivated to strive to the next milestone. This will also make your goals measurable. Having measureable goals set up as milestones is important because it adds to your motivation. Every time you achieve one of those milestone, it provides you with inspiration and drive to get to the next one. If you reach a certain number of sales after your first month you have a tangible goal for your following month. If you take it day by day the big picture doesn’t seem so big.
The last key to getting your goals is accountability. I have often heard that you shouldn’t tell people your goals because if you fail then nobody will notice. I believe however that that is precisely why you should tell people about your goals. Staying accountable is hard to do by yourself. You can tell yourself that if you skip today then who would know. But if there are people who are occasionally checking in on you or even better, are able to see evidence of your struggle you feel obligated to keep pushing. Fear of judgement can be useful here. If you cheat, you’re ultimately only hurting yourself.  If someone is keeping tabs on you, then the fear of them judging you for failure could be the extra push you need. If your goal was to lead a healthy lifestyle by running three times a week and going to the gym three times a week, tell someone you live with or someone you work with. Every run day they could ask, “How was your run?” or “Did you run today?” When you cheat on your goals and only you know about them it becomes significantly easier to abandon your milestones and eventually your overall goals. It is much harder for you to explain to someone why you didn’t make those calls today or why you didn’t go out and try and make that sale. Laziness can be the enemy. Nothing worth achieving is easy. Going through the pain and discipline is ultimately satisfying and is really the only way to achieve true success.

Setting New Year’s Resolutions are easy. These are often forgotten within the week. Setting goals and following through on them is a more difficult process. Everyone wants to be successful at something. The problem lies in the fact that not everyone is willing to work for that success. When things get difficult people quit and seem to have no difficulty in finding excuses.

I would encourage you to stay motivated through the pain even if it does not appear that you are making any headway. The easiest way to fail is to quit. So, find your motivation. Define it and articulate it. Be real with yourself about the goals and ensure that what you’re doing is actually tangible and possible. When you’ve figured out that goal and all the milestone goals to get there, don’t be afraid to tell people about it. They will help you keep accountable and may even remind you of your motivation. New Year’s brings new beginnings and there is truly no better time to start.

I dare you to go through a little pain, stay disciplined and focused. If you can outlast the pain and discomfort you will realize your success.