We are officially in 2015 and as with the start of every year a load of people are going to be setting their ‘new year resolutions’. A lot of people will try to live by the phrase ‘new year, new me’.
However people that do set ‘new year resolutions’ will most likely fail and end up quitting a month or two down the line. I’m not trying to be pessimistic but that is the truth.
People who do set ‘new year resolutions’ just cannot keep up with their ‘resolutions’. It’s the simple truth.
In this article you will learn how to set goals properly and how you can achieve all the goals that you set in 2015.
Why New Year Resolutions Don’t Work
When the new year comes around, many people set their new year resolutions. They might say ‘In 2015 I’m going to get skinny and lose all this weight’ or ‘In 2015 I’m going to make a ton of money’.
However this doesn’t actually end up coming to fruition. According to statistics 92% of people who set new year resolutions end up failing.
John Norcross and his colleagues, who published their findings in the Journal of Clinical Psychology, approximately 50% of people set resolutions with the popular being quit smoking, lose weight or improve their current financially situation.
But many people just do not end up sticking with their goals and just end up giving up in like a month or even less in some instances.
New Year Resolutions tend to be very vague that is the main reason why people do not each them.
Some of the resolutions that people tend to set for themselves are not realistic and some just are down right wishful thinking. There are also some people that don’t really want it and just set a new years resolution because everyone else is.
Another thing about new years resolutions is most people just don’t write them down. A study on Harvard MBA graduates asked if they had clear, written goals for the future and if they had a plan in place.
From the whole group only 3% had actually written their goals down while 13% set some goals. A staggering 84% had set no goals at all.
The same group were studied again a decade later to see how they were doing and what progress they had made. The results were that the 13% of people who set goals were earning double than the 84% that had no goals.
But get this, the 3% who wrote down their goals and had a plan were averaging more than ten times the income of the other 97%.
The study is truly mind blowing and shows the power of goal setting and what it can actually achieve for you.
You’ve got to really want it, not just say it because you see someone else doing it. If you really want something then you will do anything to achieve and accomplish it.
Goal Setting
There are many, many examples out there of people who aimed for something, set a goal and achieved it and even surpassed it.
Before he was famous for his martial arts movies, Bruce Lee could not get a break into acting. He was really struggling. It was when he started setting goals that he achieved worldwide success. Bruce Lee wanted to become the highest paid oriental movie star of his time. And as we know it he was.
A skinny underdeveloped kid from Austria wanted had a deep desire and massive drive to win the Mr Olympia and Mr Universe body building titles and become one of the most successful actors. He set goals and made sure that he pushed himself hard.
Arnold Schwarzenegger went on to win a record seven Mr Olympia titles and three Mr Universe titles. He also starred in blockbuster films such as the Terminator franchise, Kindergarten Cop, The Expendables and Conan the Barbarian.
Many people do set goals, and a lot of people actually achieve them. You have to have a hunger to succeed as well as being laser focused and a strong drive. Both Arnold and Bruce had these traits.
The great basketball player Michael Jordan wrote about goal setting in his book I Can’t Accept Not Trying: Michael Jordan on the Pursuit of Excellence. He said the following:
I approach everything step by step….I had always set short-term goals. As I look back, each one of the steps or successes led to the next one. When I got cut from the varsity team as a sophomore in high school, I learned something. I knew I never wanted to feel that bad again….So I set a goal of becoming a starter on the varsity. That’s what I focused on all summer. When I worked on my game, that’s what I thought about. When it happened, I set another goal, a reasonable, manageable goal that I could realistically achieve if I worked hard enough….I guess I approached it with the end in mind. I knew exactly where I wanted to go, and I focused on getting there. As I reached those goals, they built on one another. I gained a little confidence every time I came through.
This is a great saying from Michael Jordan with him backing why goal setting is so effective. Michael Jordan had set many goals to become one of the most valued and best athlete in the NBA.
He has become one of the most popular sporting figures of his generations and this is no fluke. MJ has been endorsed and been featured in many advertisements and commercials including Nike, McDonalds, Chevrolet and Coca-Cola among many other companies.
How to Achieve your Goals In 2015
When you don’t know where to start it can be hard to actually achieve your goal. Also with no support or no mentoring, you can feel kinda overwhelmed and lost.
The first thing you need to do is actually write your goals down and make them SMART. SMART meaning Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. You may have read this before somewhere but setting SMART goals is the best way to actually measure your goals and to see if you are making progress.
Many successful people and people who have achieved great things set SMART goals. An example of a SMART goals may be:
‘I will easily make £10,000 a month before December 21st 2015’
‘I will lose 20KG of weight and feel great before August 6th 2015’
These goals are very specific and you can easily measure them. They are also achievable and realistic and you to have a deadline to work towards.
The use of the words ‘easily’ and ‘feel great’ make it easier for your subconscious mind. It makes it feel like those things are already in your grasp and you can achieve them with ease.
The use of the words ‘I will’ makes it sound like you have no doubt that you will achieve it. This programs your mind to make it sound like you have already done it.
Make Small Achievable Goals
This is another step on how you can achieve your bigger goals. Divide your actual bigger goals into smaller manageable goals.
This is how successful people actually manage to achieve their goals and make their goals much more manageable.
Some goals can seem scary and seem too intimidating to start. It might seem a huge distance to your goals and where you are now.
It is very easy to do it and can make your larger goals much more manageable and seem more achievable. All you have to do is start your goals backwards and work your way through them.
So for example; if your goal is to start an online store then you will want to work backwards. So your smaller goals may be to find your suppliers for your online store and then buy the domain name and web hosting for your online store.
This way you will surely be able to manage your goals and achieve them. This way it turns your goals into much more manageable goals and you will be much more likely to accomplish them. So make sure you set smaller goals as well as bigger goals.
Action
Are you feeling overwhelmed by the goals you have set for yourself? Do they feel too big for you?
A good way to combat this is to create an action plan for your goals. An action plan is just the necessary steps that you have to follow to complete your goals.
Just setting goals without a plan is just plain stupid and will get you nowhere. As the famous author, Stephen Covey said; “Stop setting goals. Goals are pure fantasy unless you have a specific plan to achieve them.”
This is one of the best quotes I have heard from Stephen Covey and he speaks so true. Without an action plan your goals are just words on a piece of paper.
To create your action plan you should take all the necessary steps it takes to actually accomplish your goal. Break down your goal and write down all the necessary steps it takes to complete your goal.
So if your goal is to ‘make £10,000 a month in income before December 21st 2015’ then you should write down all the steps it takes to complete that goal. Find out how you are going to earn that money and what your business strategy is going to be. Check out this article to find out ways to earn money online.
So some of the things that might go into your action plan is,
- Sign up to Udemy and create profile.
- ‘Create videos for Udemy
- ‘Create eBook for Udemy
- Create educational material for Udemy
- Sign up to elance and Fiverr
- Create profile
- Create freelancing gigs
You just basically break up your goal and write specifically what is required and what you have to do. Then you just start doing each task and ticking it off the list.
Commit
You have to make sure you commit to your goals and do whatever it takes to achieve your goals. You have to want it bad.
Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to become one of the greatest bodybuilders of his time. He committed to everything it took to become a bodybuilder. He made sure he did everything it took to get to where he wanted.
Even when he didn’t feel like training and pumping weights, he would. There was one day when he was training for the Mr Olympia title. The local gym he went to was closed because of bad weather conditions.
He wanted to train so badly that he walked to the gym in the bad weather conditions and broke into the gym and started training. It was so cold that his hands would stick to the barbell but he still carried on training.
He was 100% committed to his goals and you should be too.
Don’t be afraid to reach out for help. Ask other people who have already completed the goals that you want to accomplish. Seek out mentors and ask them for help. If you can’t find mentors, read books, blogs and articles to find the correct information and help.
Visualize
It is very important to visualize your big goals. This means imagining and acting out like you have already completed your goals in your mind. You feel what it feels like when you already have achieved that goal, how you would think and what you would be seeing.
Say if you have a goal of becoming a professional footballer. Now it is a big goal but you would imagine what it feels like to be a footballer, what you would see being a professional footballer and what you would smell. Fully imagine you are actually there.
Using Visualization techniques actually works. Obviously you have to put the work in that is necessary to achieve your goal and you cannot just rely on visualization techniques.
Visualization is very powerful. Some celebrities who used visualization techniques include Tiger Woods and Oprah Winfrey.
Tiger Woods would visualize from an early age and use his mind and visualization techniques to imagine him being a golf world champion and exactly where he would want the golf ball to stop. He is one of the most well known golf players in the world now.
Oprah Winfrey regularly used to use visualization to get to where she is. She used visualization techniques, positive talk and would also read many self help books. She is now one of the most famous and well known TV personalities and media hosts with her own television network and books. She is the first female black billionaire in North America.
Conclusion
It can be hard to achieve what you want in life but with the right advice and the right mindset you can achieve anything.
You have to be willing to put in the hard work and be determined to succeed. You must have laser sharp focus and be willing to do whatever it takes to accomplish your goals.
If you would like more help on goal setting and achieving your goals, then I suggest you check these books out:
- Goal Setting Guide
- Goal Mapping: How to Turn Your Dreams Into Realities
- Achieve Anything In Just One Year: Be Inspired Daily To Live Your Dreams and Accomplish Your Goals
- Think and Grow Rich
- It Works: The Famous Little Red Book That Makes Your Dreams Come True!
I hope this article helped you and you took away something from this article. If this article helped you then please share it with someone else that you would think it would help.
If you would like learn more inspiration and motivational stories on how famous entrepreneurs and inventors like Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison and Bill Gates got to where they are and how they got their then I suggest you get The Success Story: Discover and Learn How Ultra Successful People Work and Achieve the Results they want.
This book has the inspirational journeys that these successful people and details what you can learn from each person.
What goals have you set for this year? How do you plan on achieving them? We would love to hear from you. Comment in the comment section below.
