It’s that time of year again – time to come up with some goals (or resolutions depending on your preference) to strive for over the course of the new year. Some of you will succeed, but others will unfortunately fail. For those that have fallen short of your goals in the past, I am here to help. I have found two “secrets” that help me reach my goals 95% of the time. While I’m still not perfect when it comes to reaching my goals, being 95% of the way there is a good place to be. So what are my secrets? Read on to find out!
Secret Goal Reaching Tip #1 – Reminders
Yup, it is this simple. All you have to do is be reminded of your goals. In the past, I would fail miserably on my goals because I would write them down in a notebook, close it, and put it to the side. At the end of the year, as I was cleaning up, I would stumble upon my notebook, open it and see my goals. A bunch of times I would be like “wow, I wanted to do that!?” In other words, I completely forgot about them and thus failed at reaching them.
To correct this, a year ago, I started to write my goals down but instead of pushing the notebook to the side, I put the goals on a sticky note and taped it to my computer monitor. For my laptop, I made them my background picture. By keeping them in front of me, they constantly reminded me of what I was trying to achieve. It shouldn’t come to anyone’s surprise that I started making progress on my goals and reaching them because of this.
Therefore, reflect on the times when you failed at reaching a goal. Were you committing the same mistake I was? If so, change things up this year and keep your goals out in front of you. The more you see them, the more likely you will be to reach them.
Secret Goal Reaching Tip #2 – Visualization
The other secret tip I started using came about because there were some goals I was still failing on even with the reminders. These goals were more long term goals as opposed to short term goals. For example, I wanted to build my passive income from dividends up to $250 per month. As anyone who invests knows, this takes some time. I would be all set to start the journey, but after a few months, I would get sidetracked because of the length of time it was taking.
I found a great work around to this was visualizing my goals. I started to picture what it would be like to have that $250 per month of passive income sitting in my account. I pictured it growing into a larger amount and being the stepping stone to helping me reach my overall goal of financial independence one day.
Once I did this, my motivation returned and I stayed on track. For those of you out there that are losing motivation on your goals, turn to visualization. You might use it for both short term and long term goals. It doesn’t matter, as long as you reach your goals in the end. That is the key.
Final Thoughts
My two secret tips are fairly simple both in terms of use and in working them into your routine. If you are constantly reminded of your goals, you will make more of an effort to reach them. Likewise, when you are lacking in motivation, start picturing life as if you have reached your goals. What will it be like? What will it feel like? Internalize these feelings and sights and use them to motivate you to reach your goals for the new year.
Readers, are there any additional tips you would add to help people reach their goals?