Goals
Achieving Your Goals
Setting and achieving your goals can be one of the most
stressful and sometimes futile things you ever do in your life.
Each new year brings new resolutions. People make unrealistic promises
to themselves knowing that many of them are sure to be broken. But we
do it anyway, because it is a tradition that has been passed down through
many generations.
There are several ways to plan for reaching your goals that can greatly
increases your chances for success and reduce the amount of stress involved.
First, you must understand that while goals should be written down, they
need not be etched in stone. For instance, say that you want to lose 20
pounds in the next two months, and two months later, you have only lost
15 pounds.
Many people would see this as a failure, get depressed, and go back to
their unhealthy habits. The results are predictable. They gain back the
weight they lost (or more) and end up back at square one.
Achieving a goal is like driving to a different city. You never travel
in a straight line. You make turns, take detours, and sometimes get lost
(although most men would never admit to this). Do you go back home and
start over? Of course not. You just make adjustments from your current
location.
Taking the above example once again, losing 15 pounds instead of 20 is
not failure! Absolutely not. You simply need to make the necessary adjustments
in your goal and continue on. Instead of dwelling on your inability to
lose 20 pounds, consider that you now only need to lose five pounds. Since
you just lost 15 pounds in two months, losing five more in the next month
should be a snap. But if you do not, you simply make the necessary adjusts
once again from that point. Each goal gets easier and easier.
You should also make reasonably achievable goals. If you need to lose
100 pounds, do not plan to lose it in the next six months. That is not
only unreasonable, it can be dangerous to your health. However, losing
100 pounds in 12 months breaks down to slightly less that two pounds per
week. That is certainly within reason.
If your goal is to earn a million dollars in the next year, that is admirable.
But have you thought about how you are going to do that? If you are starting
from scratch, that may not be a reasonable goal. Perhaps you should start
by building a foundation first and shooting for your first million dollars
next year.
Of course, if you plan on making a million dollars next year and only
make 20 bucks, you only have $999,980 to go.
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