How to Achieve Your Goals Effectively

If you’re like the typical human, thus in your life you’ve got dreams and goals. In fact, there’s probably a lot of stuff you’d like to do — big and small.

 

The problem is this: we set a deadline, but not a timeline.

We reflect on the ultimate goal we want to accomplish and the timeframe in which we want to achieve it. We’re saying things like “I want to lose 20 pounds in the fall,” and “I want to add 50 pounds in the next 12 weeks to my bench press.”

 

The problem with this is that if we don’t meet the predetermined deadline, we set in the beginning somehow, we feel like a failure … even if we’re better off than we were at the start. The end result, unfortunately, is that if we do not achieve our goal by the original deadline, we always give up.

For example, making the mistake of placing performance goals before your personality or preferring life – changing changes over choices in the everyday lifestyle.

 

Instead of giving yourself a deadline by which to achieve a specific goal (and then feel like a failure if you don’t achieve it), you should choose a goal that is important to you and then set a schedule to work consistently towards it.

 

Productive and successful people consistently practice the things that matter to them. Every week at the same time, the best weightlifters are in the gym. Every day, the best writers sit down on the keyboard. And the same principle applies to the best leaders, parents, executives, musicians, and doctors.

 

You can’t predict when you’re going to have a brilliant stroke and write a moving story, draw a beautiful portrait, or make an amazing picture, but the plan can make sure you work when that genius stroke happens.

 

If your body feels like setting a new personal record, you can’t predict, but the plan can make sure you’re in the gym whether you like it or not.

It’s about doing the art, not performing at some stage. (This is practice, not a play, not a match. Practice.)

 

If you want to be the type of person doing things consistently, then give yourself a schedule to follow, not a race-to-race deadline.

 

The strange thing is that it’s not about the results for top performers, it’s about the continued training. The focus is not on achieving X goal by a certain date, but on doing the action.