13 Steps to Dramatically Help You Achieve Your Goals.

As I write this blog post, I have a list of things to do that I'm ignoring. Some things on that list have been there for a long time and people are waiting on them. Luckily it's not a life or death satiation! Why am I stalling? Because I've learned to focus on my goals and to differentiate between what's urgent and what's important.

Here's a list of items that if put in practice will help you stay on track to reaching your goals...

1. Write it down. Writing down your goals helps you to focus on them. Some people say to put it away in a drawer, others say tape it up to the wall in front of you. Either way, write them down. Don't write and "I want" or "I wish", write it in the present tense, i.e. "I have".

2. Keep your goals in mind and mentally in front of you like you're aiming at them with a gunner's sight.

3. As you are faced with choices and decisions:
   
   
   
   • Evaluate how important it is to your goals, family, health, etc.
     
   • Evaluate how urgent it is. Urgent does not equal important.
     
   • Choose the important things over the urgent things.
     
     
     
     • For example: I feel an urgency to get a new blog post finished or start a new application, but it's more important to my long term happiness to spend the evening with my wife, or doing something with our kids.
       
     
     
   • This process of evaluation needs to become second nature and transparent.
     
   
   
4. Constantly try to move things off of your plate that conflict with achieving your goals. Depending on the item, this can take a while. Also, depending on the item, this can be difficult to do for emotional reasons and leave you with guilty feelings. Evaluate the time you spend on an item vs. how important that amount of time spent on reaching your goals would be.

5. Learn to Let Go. Don't hold grudges. Don't hold anger. Don't try to get even. Just let things go and move on.

6. Learn to Delegate. Offload some tasks and items to others and let them run with it. I mean really let them run with it too.

7. Don't burn bridges. It's a small world and sooner or later you'll need something, even if it's just a minuscule amount of information from something or someone in your past. Or, someone in your past will have the opportunity to help you in a direct or indirect way... it always works out better if you departed on good terms!

8. Study others who have achieved what you're trying to achieve. This should help you avoid pitfalls and keep you from having to learn everything from scratch.

9. Get everyone onboard. It's much easier to alter behavior and work towards a goal if your family is supportive and in agreement with what you're trying to do. It is especially important for your spouse to be onboard. Plus, I find that my wife is able to get me to take that extra step when I might otherwise pass on it.

10. Help others who share similar goals but are not as far along the path as you are. Nothing reinforces learning something better than tying to teach it or explain it.

11. Get professional help. A coach or mentor can guide you towards your goal much faster than you can get there on your own. This can be expensive but well worth the investment. Just like getting private instruction in any area, you may have to try a few different individuals before you connect with the person that can really help you.

12. Sharpen your axe once in a while:
    
    
    
    • Any good Boy Scout will tell you that a dull knife or axe is much more dangerous than a sharp one. You can beat on a tree all day with a dull axe and not cut much wood. In addition, a dull axe will bounce off the tree instead of cutting into the wood. When it bounces off, it can easily strike your leg or other parts of your body. While it may be too dull to cut the tree, it'll slice into your leg just fine. The same is true of your mental state and knowledge. You can't work all the time and get anywhere. Take some breaks, take some time off. This will sharpen your ability to accomplish what you need to accomplish. Sharpen your skills by reading and learning more about your particular goals and interests.
      
    
    
13. Don't Give Up: A lot of people will try something for a while and then stop when they don't see the results that they expected. It's rare that a successful person achieved their success on their first, second, or even tenth attempt. Sometimes it takes hundreds. The quality that successful people have that makes them successful is that they don't give up. They may stop and regroup, evaluate what's not working, and try a different approach or path, but they keep trying.
    

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