How to achieve your goals and set the game up to win!

Many of us set goals and really want to magic to happen but in many cases we can fail miserably. 

What is the difference that makes the difference and what can we do to ultimately set the game up to win? 

Following these simple yet powerful steps will significantly improve your chances of a positive and lasting outcome!

Could this be the missing piece of the puzzle?

• ϖ Choose a goal or goals that are realistic and challenging yet are achievable within the given timeframe. Always state want you want in a positive context and be clear and specific about your outcome, with a definite time frame for completion along with a precise way to measure your results. For example, if you wanted to lose some weight, you would say ‘I want to be really fit and healthy, have an abundance of energy and weigh x amount by a certain date’ rather than saying ‘I don’t want to be overweight anymore and constantly feel tired and drained of energy.’ Having a deadline is essential as it gives you a clearly defined target to focus on. How can you ever expect to hit a target if you don’t know what the target is? Your unconscious mind will always seek to find you more of what you constantly focus on, no exceptions. Wherever you are or have in your life right now is a perfect reflection of whatever you’ve been consistently focusing on up until now. 

• ϖ Have multiple ways to achieve your goals. At one stage in my life a few years ago, I was doing a lot of travelling, I was on 85 planes and helicopters in around 15 months but one of my goals was to work out at least 5 days a week, but in most cases I didn’t have the time and or I didn’t have access to a gym. I was able to easily meet my goals in a fun and easy way by having behavioural flexibility and setting up a few simple rules. Whenever I stayed in a hotel I would only ever use the stairs even if I was on the 14^th floor and I would never use an elevator or lift. I always ran up the stairs even with my luggage no matter how long I’d travelled for (one exception was in the Burg Al Arab hotel in Dubai where they didn’t have any stairs or I couldn’t find them). Whenever I was going through an airport I would always run up any steps whenever possible rather than use an escalator. Another opportunity to meet my goals was whenever I was travelling through London and I had to get off at the Covent Garden tube station. Some of you may know that it has a lift that usually has a large queue waiting on it, or you can take the 193 spiral step staircase, which I did and sprinted all the way up to the top while carrying my 20kg bag of luggage with me. Whenever I got to the top my legs felt like they’d turned to jelly and I was totally out of breath, but it was another way for me to easily succeed at my goals. (Note) one of the things that was and still is really important to me was reduce or eliminate my carbon footprint and the impact it has on the environment, so before I started on my travels I planted around10, 000 indigenous trees (oak, ash and elder) on my land. 

• ϖ Take the time to write down your goals and develop an action plan for achieving them. Whenever we write anything down it gives us clarity and a point of reference to go back to. It also helps to activate our neurological circuits at an even deeper level, which helps to reinforce our commitment to achieve. Having an action plan is like creating a clearly defined road map where we can accurately measure our progress and quickly realise whenever we get off track. Also review your goals frequently so that you can make the necessary adjustments to stay on track and ask yourself ‘what’s the next step I need to take in order to move towards this goal’.

“Winners Take Imperfect Action while Losers Are Still Perfecting Their Plans” – Kevin Nations 

• ϖ Start today, people often put off going for their goals because they’re trying to get everything perfect before they start. There’s never going to be a perfect time and you’re never going to have all of the parts of the puzzle before you start. If you do then your goal is far to small and you’re playing safe. All of the rewards in life are on the other side of your comfort zone. If your goal doesn’t scare you then it might not be big enough and you might want to consider upping your game. Be creative and flexible about how you’re going to make the magic happen and find ways to make it fun. Chunk it down into bite size pieces so that it’s realistic and achievable and reward yourself for any of your small successes. 

• ϖ Visualising yourself achieving your outcome with emotional intensity for a few minutes each and every day is a powerful way to condition yourself for success. Whenever you wake up first thing in the morning and just before you go to sleep at night is a great strategy to reinforce your commitment to your goals and if possible several times throughout the day. The more you can become emotionally associated with peak intensity to the outcome, the more you’re going to empower yourself to make it happen. Imagine what it would actually feel like to have achieved your goal, how would your life be different, how would it have improved and who else would benefit from your successes. 

• ϖ Surround yourself with like-minded people who support you and are in alignment with who you ultimately want to become. If your goal is to run a marathon and be in the best shape ever, then hanging out in the pub 3 nights a week with your friends talking about negative stuff or watching EastEnders (no hopers) is probably not going to make it easy for you to achieve your outcome. The old saying that who we spend time with is who we will become is so true as we will unconsciously tune into the vibration of whom we spend time around. Free advice is usually the most expensive advice you can take. Everyone has an opinion about something and they usually like to give to you. If you’re taking advice from anyone always ask yourself, does this person have personal congruency? If you wanted to be abundantly wealthy would you want to take advice from a poor person? If you wanted to be super fit and healthy would you take advice from a person who’s stressed out, overweight and smokes? Always find someone who’s mastered the area of life you want to succeed at and model the strategies and techniques that have worked for them. Get a coach or mentor who will hold you accountable and hire someone to keep you focused, you don’t need more resources, you need more focus. Successful people make decisions quickly and rarely change their mind; unsuccessful people usually make decisions slowly and change their mind often.