One of the things I wanted to create with this site was a place where I could share what I’ve learnt, so here are three mistakes I make, some more often than others. They’re all centred around a lack of focus, which can be a real productivity killer.

1) Ignoring plans I make

Planning isn’t one of my favourite activities, but I find that once I’ve started to create a plan it’s not too difficult to finish it all. Plans can take anywhere from 20 minutes to several hours to create, and the level of detail depends on the task being planned. The real problem isn’t in creating the plan, but in sticking to it.

Once the initial enthusiasm has waned, it becomes very difficult to stick to any kind of schedule. More interesting tasks appear all the time, unexpected events occur that throw off schedules and there are days when you just don’t want to see a particular project.

So far the best solutions I’ve found to this problem has been the following:

1. Make the plan as simple as possible – This goes against my natural urge to plan for everything and to make things as detailed as possible. Instead, I find a more agile approach works best. This starts by making one very general plan, and making smaller ones as each large milestone is completed. See Extreme Achievement for more information on this.
2. Put the plan somewhere visible – It gets very hard to ignore a plan when it’s constantly in your face. It might feel a bit silly writing out your plan on a huge sheet of paper and sticking it to your ceiling, but it does have an affect!
3. Make your plans small – No matter what you plan for, something will appear and mess it up. The smaller (and simpler) your plans, the easier it is to cope with these interruptions. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t set big goals, but rather you should aim to get there in lots of little steps rather than a few giant strides.

Planning takes work, but if done well it can save hours of time and a lot of frustration. Learn what your limits are and set yourself reasonable targets to avoid any problems.

2) Ignoring priorities

This is related to the first point, and in some ways it’s probably the biggest mistake that anybody can make when it comes to productivity. It’s an unfortunate fact that there will never, ever be enough hours in the day to complete everything. This is where priorities come in, and when they’re followed they can make a huge difference.

The hard part is accepting that in order to do something, you will have to not do something else. Once you understand and accept this, it makes it a little simpler to prioritise your actions. To further encourage sticking to priorities, any rewards should be given for tasks that were marked as “high priority”.

3) Ignoring the clock

After a certain amount of work, your productivity will take a steep decline. This is nature’s way of telling you to stop and do something else. Once of the worst habits I picked up at university was working until 5 or 6am in the morning, getting a few hours sleep and then working through the day again. Although I got my work finished, the quality suffered as I made more mistakes and felt far more frustrated.

I’ve found the root cause of this problem is not trusting myself to resume work the next day. Although I know I’ll be more effective in the morning, I’ve had too many days of slacking until the afternoon that put me off this approach. It often seems like working through the night is the only way I’ll get something completed.

I found the best way to beat this problem is to wake up an hour earlier and dive straight into whatever task I set the night before. Even if I don’t get a huge amount done in this first hour, it sets up a more productive mood for the rest of the day.

Bonus – Not ignoring other people’s standards

It seems every list needs a bonus item at the end, so here’s one thing that I don’t ignore that would probably be a good idea. Everybody has different standards, and it’s often hard enough meeting your own, let alone somebody else’s. 

Don’t get too hung up on trying to be somebody else. Improve yourself in your own way, and you’ll be far more satisfied than you ever could be by living someone else’s life.

With this increase in interest, now is a good time to take a second look at The Secret. What is it all about, why has it become so popular and how can it be applied to your life?

What is “The Secret”?

The Secret is the idea that “thoughts become things”. It might seem like common knowledge that we must think about things before we create them, but The Secret takes that one step further. One of the key ideas in the film is the “Law of Attraction”, which states that like attracts like. For example, thinking about positive things will attract positive events into your live. 

The “Law of Attraction” itself has been around for much longer than the current hype of “cosmic ordering”. The film mentions it has been used by many famous thinkers high achievers, and that it has also appeared in biblical stories.

The law of attraction is also known as the “intention manifestation” model. This model of thinking states that thinking about something (putting out an intention) will cause what you’re thinking about to manifest in your life.

Even if all of this sounds a little far fetched, I still recommend checking out the film because it contains some great tips on setting and achieving goals. It also has an extremely positive attitude, and you can’t help but become more enthusiastic about your goals after watching it.

Why has it become so popular?

There’s been a huge online buzz behind the film, and word of mouth has really helped to spread the message. Several high-profile personal development bloggers have also spoken about the film, particularly Steve Pavlina and his wife Erin. Along with the online buzz, several of the film’s main contributors have also appeared on some high-profile TV shows.

Marketing aside, what is it about the film that has made it resonate so strongly with its audience?

The film itself is well presented but has a very “genuine” feel to it. It contains a good dose of humour, and all of the speakers seem very warm and natural. There’s no blatant self-promotion that can sometimes creep into personal development material.

Of course, the main feature of the film is that it makes some very large promises.

Promising that applying a single principle can make anything certainly gives the film something to live up to. Possibly the only message more popular than “get rich quick” is “get everything you want easily”.

Despite the fact that the intention/manifestation model sounds like an easy way of getting anything you want, putting it into practice can be difficult at first.

At the simplest level it’s just a case of thinking about what you want. However, there are a few subtle additions that are quite important. It requires a constant effort and a sense of clarity in order to be successful. Despite the film framing these practices as a “secret”, they’re fundamental to any form of achievement, regardless of the beliefs behind it.   

Applying The Secret

How do you apply the Law of Attraction to your everyday life?

Create your picture of clarity — Before you can start, you need to have a clear vision of where you want to be. Like any goal, you must be specific and write it down!

Visualise your success — Visualise your goal as already achieved. Spend some time to make the visualisation powerful, and visit the scene every day. It’s even better if you can combine the vision with emotions from a previous victory. Strong, positive emotions make a visualisation much more powerful.

Constantly review your “intentions” – This is one of the most important parts of goal achievement – you must constantly review your goals if you are to achieve them. You should aim to read through your goals at least once a day. The more often you check your goals, the more deeply rooted into your routine they become.

Does any of this work?

Does setting clear goals and constantly visualising the results help you to achieve what you want? Absolutely! Is it because your thoughts vibrate with the universe and it delivers what you desire? That’s up to you to decide.

Whether you think it’s an amazing secret or a load of mumbo-jumbo, I recommend taking a 30 day trial of the techniques to see if it works for you. Approach it with it with an open mind, more importantly don’t let it put you off using visualisation in your goal setting. 

The top four new year’s resolutions are (source):

1. Increase exercise
2. Be more conscientious about work or school
3. Develop better eating habits
4. Stop smoking, drinking, or using drugs (including caffeine)

These are all admirable goals, and the start of the year seems like the perfect time to start them. After all, it’s a new year and a new beginning, so why do so many of us struggle?

Why do new year’s resolutions fail?

There are plenty of reasons, but here are some of the main culprits:

• Poorly defined — “Increase Exercise” isn’t a particularly well defined goal. “Exercise for thirty minutes every Monday, Wednesday and Friday” is much clearer, and much more likely to succeed.
• Too much, too soon — If you currently drink, smoke and do no exercise, is it realistic to expect that overnight you’ll become a lean, mean, non-smoking exercise machine? Not really, and that’s one of the reasons these resolutions fail.
  We often set ourselves huge, magical targets, and expect that come January 1st we’ll have limitless motivation and energy to complete anything we want. This isn’t to say that big goals are bad, but they must be consistent with the current level of your abilities.
• Expecting to fail — New Year’s Resolutions are generally regarded as something of a joke. We don’t really expect to keep them, and if we give up it’s not treated. This is the wrong mindset for any kind of goal, as if you expect to fail you almost certainly will.
• No planning — 79% of people don’t create a plan for achieving their resolutions, and approximately 35% of people stop within the first two months. Failing to plan is planning to fail, as they say.

Tips for achieving your new year’s resolutions

Now that we know some of the reasons why resolutions fail, we can look at ways to improve the situation.

Clearly define your goals

Put some time and thought into your goals. Ask yourself what you really want, and don’t feel pressured into taking up the same resolutions as everyone else. Saying “I’ll never drink again!” when you’re hung over on the 1st of January isn’t the most well thought out goal. Set aside some time to yourself, and be creative with what you want.

If this is your first time setting serious goals, you might want to read the article ”Goal setting for beginners“.

Set smaller goals

It’s good to set large goals, but they’re of no benefit if you know you’ll give up on them early. Trying to give up all of your bad habits in one go is a recipe for disaster, which will likely lead to early failure.

Use 30 day trials

Instead of setting one huge goal, why not try out lots of different goals by using 30 day trials? This makes it easier to take up many different habits throughout the year, and you may find that some things that you wanted don’t have the benefits you thought they would.

A short trial is a great way to learn more about your capabilities, and it also gives you lots of small successes that you can use to motivate yourself.

Daily reviews

Make reviewing your goals the first thing you do in the morning. Well, it can be the second thing if you need the bathroom! 

Write them on an index card and carry it in your wallet or purse. When you have a few spare minutes during the day, take it out and read through your goals again. Constantly remind yourself of what you want to achieve, and you’ll find it much easier to get there.

Create a plan

Planning isn’t the most glamorous activity, but it is a valuable exercise. Break your goal down into small, actionable steps.

Trying to go straight to the top is extremely difficult, so take it one step at a time. You wouldn’t try to lift the heaviest weight at the gym if you’d never lifted before. Start small, and gradually work your way towards success.

Other Tips

There are a few other tips you can use to increase the chances that you’ll complete your resolutions.

Fill your environment with reminders

Create posters, charts, books of inspirational quotes and pictures, or anything else that you think will help you achieve your goals. Want a new car? Then stick a picture of it on your wall. Use the power of positive visualisation to help the goal stick in your mind.

A nice example of this is by Jack Canfield in the film “The Secret”. He wanted to earn 100,000 dollars, so he created a $100,000 bill and stuck it to his ceiling. It was the first thing he’d see in the morning, and the last thing he’d see at night. Keep the goal in your mind.

Keep a journal or progress log

Keeping a record of your progress has many advantages, and allows you to spot areas you are struggling. It’s also another way of reminding you of your goals, and it helps you to make sure that you take a small step towards success every day.

Use a focusing partner

Get a friend or relative to help with your goal. It’s always good to have a friend along for the journey, and they can help pick you up when the going gets tough. 

Nobody’s perfect

You can’t complete every goal, and you will fail at some. Remember that failure doesn’t matter. Even if you only gain one piece of insight, or learn one new thing from your goal, you haven’t wasted your time and energy.

As an example, let’s look at my resolutions for 2006. To tell you the truth, I can’t even remember them! Looking back, it appears that I wanted to blog more, start my business and finish the rest of my games website.

As you can probably guess, what actually happened was completely different, but not in a bad way. I started this personal development website, released some small source code libraries, wrote some in-depth articles and conducted several indie developer interviews. It’s not entirely what I had in mind when I set my resolutions (if you can call them that), but it’s been a great experience.

All the best for 2007!

If you’re setting resolutions for the year 2007, then I wish you all the best in achieving all you can and more. Here’s to a happy and prosperous new year!

A focusing partner is a person you deeply trust that will help you with your goals. They could be your spouse, a relative or a close friend. It doesn’t have to be a one-way street, so you can both encourage each other as you work towards your goals. Remember that you aren’t always going to succeed, so make sure you’re comfortable with your focusing partner seeing you during your highs and lows.

The most important thing is that you must feel comfortable sharing your goals and plans, as holding back will only make things harder. Goal setting can be a deeply personal and spiritual exercise, and it often reveals the things that you hold to be truly important. Letting someone see this part of you can be difficult, especially if your ego is chattering away in the background.

Let go of the fear that you’ll become vulnerable by revealing yourself. Once you’ve moved past this fear, you’ll see that having a person to help you makes a huge difference to your life.

What’s involved with being a focusing partner?

This all depends on personal preference, but as a bare minimum you should be in regular contact to discuss your progress. How often you meet is entirely up to you, but you should aim for at least once a week.

A focusing partner’s duties include:

• Reviewing progress — You should discuss your progress with your focusing partner, even if it’s just a five minute phone call to ask how you’re doing on each of your main goals. It’s a good idea to have a copy of each other’s major goals and plans to be reviewed, as well as any targets you may have set yourselves.
  
• Reviewing plans — You will need to plan for any reasonably sized goal, so share your plans and review them regularly. It’s often much easier for your focusing partner to see if they are realistic, as we can often give ourselves an unreasonable amount of work to do.
  
• Talking through ideas — There will be bumps in the road, so it’s always good to have someone to talk to about these problems. You can creatively work to solve each other’s problems, and discuss your goals and plans for the future.
  
• Objectively analysing strengths and weaknesses — Sometimes things will go right, and sometimes they will go wrong. Having an outside view on your situation can help you get a clearer view on what is actually happening. Beating yourself up over a failure will get you nowhere, and having a person to remind you of just how much you have achieved is invaluable.

Why use a focusing partner?

It can be very difficult to develop a personal sense of accountability when setting goals. It’s all too easy to let days, weeks, and even months pass by without ever moving closer to your objectives. By telling someone about your goals, you’re becoming accountable to them as well as yourself. This added incentive can be a huge boost to your powers of goal achievement.

Another large benefit of a focusing partner is that they can help push you outside of your comfort zone. Becoming stuck in a rut can sap your creativity and productivity, and having a close friend to motivate you through these difficult times can be invaluable.

A good example of this benefit can be seen in an activity such as running. If you’re on your own, it’s very easy to stop as soon as you’re out of breath for the first time. Having a runner alongside you can help push you through the initial discomfort, and you’ll find you become fitter much faster than if you were running on your own.

Don’t be caught in the trap of thinking you have to achieve everything by yourself. Two people together can achieve much greater results than either one of them could individually.

One problem you may face when setting big goals is that they are difficult to get a grip on when planning. Setting yourself a large target, such as becoming a millionaire, is easy enough, but planning all the steps necessary to achieve it is much, much harder.

Extreme Programming

As a software developer, I’m used to breaking large tasks into smaller chunks, and it seemed like some of the methods used in software development could be used in the field of personal development and goal achievement.

Software can be big and complex, and creating it can be very expensive and risky. There are plenty of methodologies that can be used to create it, but one that has recently caught my attention is eXtreme Programming. Although the name makes it sound like programming whilst leaping out of a plane, it’s more about making developers more productive by distilling all of the various tasks into smaller units.

The rules of XP are broken into 4 sections: Planning, Designing, Coding and Testing. Not all of these fit into goal achievement, so I’ve revised them into more appropriate categories. They are: Defining, Planning, Taking Action and Measuring.

Of all the categories, Taking Action is the most important. Without Action, nothing else will happen. You can plan a goal forever and a day, but unless you actually do something, it’ll never happen.

Defining

The first stage of any goal is to define the ideal outcome that you want. Without a clear picture of what you want to achieve, you’ll struggle to get anywhere at all.

Define the Outcome

This is the process of deciding on the “what“. The “how” comes at the planning stage, so concentrate on what is to be achieved and don’t worry too much about how it will be achieved.

Goal setting can be a very difficult, but also a very rewarding process. It takes time and patience to understand the best way to set your goals, and there’s no “one size fits all” solution. It’s best to experiment with different methods to find which style suits you the best. I wrote some tips for goal setting in “goal setting for beginners“, which might help at this stage.

Create Visualisations

Once the goal is defined, use the power of visualisations to imagine the goal as already completed. You can use vision boards or picture goal books to help, and the film “The Secret” contains a lot of good tips for creating effective visualisations.

Planning

There’s no escaping the fact that any sufficiently large goal will require a degree of planning in order to achieve it. Planning should follow these rules:

Break Into Iterations

Instead of trying to achieve the goal in one fell swoop, break it into smaller chunks, or “iterations”. The advantage of using this approach is that you can quickly react to changes in your circumstances.

You can think of using iterations like creating a sculpture of a person. The first iteration is the rough outline, creating large blocks such as limbs and the head. More detail is then added with each successive iteration, until eventually it is complete. You don’t start by carving out the fine detail. 

Only Plan One Iteration at a Time

It can be extremely tempting to plan several stages ahead, but you must resist this urge at all costs. You should only plan the current iteration, as planning too far ahead removes the advantages of using the iterative approach.

Have Frequent Releases

Don’t squirrel away on a project for years until things are “just right”. Get something done and get it out there, and then refine it as time goes on. Taking the “ready, fire, aim” can help to beat procrastination, and will also help you gain valuable feedback as you go. It might turn out that your goal isn’t having the desired effect on your life, but by breaking it into small chunks you’ll find out much sooner.

You should aim for every chunk to have at least one deliverable. For example, writing a book might have a rough outline as a deliverable, or a single chapter or 10 designs for the layout.

Adopt a “Just In Time” Mindset

Don’t add anything before it is required. It can be tempting to spend days working on “laying the foundations”, but that time will be wasted if you find out you didn’t actually need any of it. For example, if you’re starting a new business, don’t buy hundreds of business cards or a purchase a monster web server until you actually need them.

Refactor Often and Mercilessly

In software, refactoring is the process of changing your code to make it more readable or better structured without changing the behaviour the same. For goal setting, improve your visualisations and goals as often as you need to. Instead of ripping them down and starting again, build on the foundations.

Be open to change, and don’t become attached to how things are. Your goals have got you this far, when they’ve had their time be prepared to let them go. A good analogy for this from the XP website:

A caterpillar is perfectly designed to eat vast amounts of foliage but he can’t find a mate, so he must refactor himself into a butterfly before he is designed to search the sky for others of his own kind.

Taking Action

The most important phase is taking action. Only you can move yourself closer to the completion of your goals, so take action to get there!

Don’t Work Alone

Don’t feel as if you have to do it all on your own, because you don’t. Find a mentor or use a focusing partner to help you reach your goals faster. A focusing partner will help you with your goals by giving encouragement and objective observations, and will also give a sense of accountability.

Review Frequently

A forgotten goal will never be achieved, so review it as frequently as you need too. Ask your mentor or focusing partner to help, so that your goal is cemented into your mind. Put up reminders around your house and office, and use visualisations and affirmations to help you keep the goal in the present.

Don’t Optimise Too Soon

This comes from taking the “ready, fire, aim” approach. Don’t optimise until the groundwork is laid and you have some form of measurement that you can use to improve your situation. Don’t worry about getting everything perfect the first time round. NOTHING is created perfect, and more often than not you’ll find new ways to improve things once you’ve started taking action.

Don’t Work Overtime

If a task is taking a lot longer than expected, don’t give in to the temptation of putting in more hours to sort it out. Instead, use your next planning session to modify the project accordingly. Working overtime will suck out your motivation and make you miserable, and although it sounds logical that working longer will help you get more done, it can (and does) have the opposite effect.

As the saying goes, “work smarter, not harder”. Burning yourself out will achieve nothing.

Measuring

Keeping some form of measurement is a simple way of increasing your productivity. When you measure your progress, you can see areas for improvement and work on them accordingly.

All Goals Have Tests

You should be able to know at any point in time if a goal has been achieved or not. Be specific when setting your goals, and don’t leave them open to interpretation.

Measure Your Success

How you do this is up to you. You might want to use a progress log, or something else. Journal often, and look for areas where you can refactor or optimise. This is really down to individual preference, and you may wish to track different things for different goals.

Measuring anything will help you improve it, and when you have frequent planning sessions you’re able to put these new things into effect quickly.

Be Flexible

The most important part of “agile achievement” is to be flexible. It’s a fact of life that circumstances will change, and this will cause rigid goals to break. Be flexible and open to change, and don’t get attached to any particular way of doing things.

Something to help me stick to my goals, both long and short term, and to help me change my habits.

Onto the requirements:

Requirements

Paper Based — The main reasons for this is that I find it much easier to modify a paper based system “on the fly”. The other main reason is that I find paper to be more rewarding to use when ticking things off. It also means I don’t need to switch the computer on first thing in the morning, which would stop the “I’ll just check my email” phase that can last hours.

Printable — As much fun as it was to draw all that stuff, it really needs to be printable so I can stick it in a binder and save myself some time.

Bigger System — Ideally it should cover my long term goals as well as my weekly ones, and also my affirmations and intentions. These items should be easy to access so that I don’t overlook them. There should also be the potential to add slots for my 30 day trials.

Points Tracking — Points tracking worked well in previous versions of my progress tracker, so I’ll be keeping it.

Space for Reflection — There should be space to write down what worked and what didn’t work, which I should be able to put in a stack and review when my monthly/quarterly goal sessions come around. There’s not much point in writing these things down if I won’t be using them.

Weekly Goal Tracking — There should be a space to monitor the progress of my top three goals.

Weekly Review Checklist — The weekly sheet should have a checklist for completing my GTD weekly review. This is more of a system to help me get into the habit of performing a weekly review.

Version 1.0

I’m not much of an artist, so this version is somewhat bland. I fully expect the design to change over time, so I’ll be linking to updates from this page.

Weekly Goals Tracker

The first document is the “weekly goals tracker”, which takes the place of my old drawable system. It’s quite similar to the old version, but now has two new sections. The first one is called “three things to be thankful for” which is another tool for making sure I don’t overlook the positive things that have happened in the week. The second new section is a checklist for my GTD weekly review.

ProgressLog-WeeklySheet.doc (53KB)

ProgressLog-WeeklySheet.odt (17KB)

ProgressLog-WeeklySheet.pdf (69KB)

30 Day Trial — Progress Monitor

The second document is a progress monitor for 30 day trials, and is geared towards changing bad habits into positive ones.

ThirtyDayTrial-ProgressTracker.doc (32KB)

ThirtyDayTrial-ProgressTracker.odt (7KB)

ThirtyDayTrial-ProgressTracker.pdf (45KB)

Licence and Credits

These files are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.5 Licence, which means you’re welcome to share and modify them as long as you keep the original link and don’t use them for commercial purposes.

The b-Alert tracker is taken from “The Power of Focus“, and the 30 day trial is a modified version of the habit changer taken from the same book. The scoring system was inspired by David Seah’s “The Printable CEO“.

What is a goal?

In its simplest form, a goal is a result you want to achieve. This can be anything, from a car that you want to own to a skill you want to develop. A goal is a target that helps you to focus your activities towards getting what you want, and gives you starting point for prioritising your actions.

What makes an excellent goal?

A lot of factors go into making an excellent goal, and some parts may work better for you than others. The common characteristics of a an excellent goal are:

• It’s written down — Not only will writing your goal down help you to remember it, but it will also help to drill it into your subconscious. If you’re hesitant about writing your goal down, it may be a sign that it isn’t actually what you want.
• It’s inspiring – It’s all too easy to choose a goal that you know you’ll achieve with minimum effort, but you’re only selling yourself short. One thing you’ll quickly realise when setting big goals is that even if you don’t achieve them, you still achieve far more than if you’d set a tame, easily achievable goal. Big goals help to inspire positive action, and are a highly beneficial tool for personal growth. Don’t be tempted into setting an uninspiring, tepid goal. It might seem like the best option, but you won’t gain as much in the long term.
• It has a deadline – Giving your goals a deadline is an important step. By setting a deadline, you automatically enter a phase of setting priorities. A deadline is also beneficial when creating a plan from your goal, because you can get a better idea of how long you have and what kinds of steps you should take.
  
• It’s flexible — People and circumstances change, and your goal should be able to adapt accordingly. Change is not a bad thing, and it’s not a bad thing to modify your goals. After all, you’ll be learning as you move towards achieving it and you’ll certainly find ways to improve what you’re doing.
• It’s specific – Goals should be as specific as possible. The more specific you make your goal, the easier it will be to create a plan to achieve it.
• It’s measurable – At any point in time, your should be able to say whether the goal has been achieved or not.

Getting help with your goals.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help with your goals. There are several ways you can go about this, from telling everybody to telling nobody. Some methods may work better for you than others, so it’s best to experiment to find what suits your style:

• Tell the World — Tell every man (and his dog) about how you’re going to achieve your goal. This can add a lot of pressure, so be sure it’s something you want to do. Some people thrive on this pressure, whereas others can be stifled by it.
• Tell a few friends — This time you’re more selective about who you tell. Your friends can be a good source of encouragement, so don’t be too hasty to overlook this option. Be careful not to tell friends who are overly negative, as they may discourage you.
• Tell a single person — Find one person whom you want to motivate them and tell them of your goal. Have them contact you on a regular basis to see how you’re progressing. This can be a good option if you have a friend who is willing to help you through to the completion of your goal.

Achieving the goal

This was covered in more depth in Thursday’s post, but to briefly review it:

• Plan your goal — Create an action plan toward completing your goal. This should outline the actionable steps involved, and possibly a rough timeline with milestones. The amount of detail depends on your individual style, but it should at least include one concrete action that will move you towards the completion of the goal.
• Review it regularly — Review your goals and their plans as regularly as possible. I recommend taking half an hour every morning to read over your list of goals to energise you for the day ahead. This also keeps things fresh in your mind so you can prioritise your actions accordingly.

The most important thing to remember…

Don’t be afraid to fail! Everybody fails at some point in their lives, but the real test is how you cope with your failure. Use it as a learning experience. Examine where you went wrong, and look at how you can prevent it from happening again. The chances are that in a few years you’ll look back on the “failure” and realise it was the best thing that ever happened to you.

Personal Favourites

• Sabine Kirstein over at CT Biz Blogs wrote a nice introduction on goals for new bloggers. I highly recommend checking out the rest of the site too, there’s a lot of really useful information tucked away.
  One point I would have added was to make sure you’re passionate about the subject before you start blogging about it. Some may think of passion as the fuel that drives you, but it’s also useful to think of it as the oil in the engine – you can run without it for a short time, but eventually you’ll grind to a halt.
• Helen at “Trying to Become Athletic” posted ten goals that focussed on becoming a fitter person, and sharing the experience and insight with others. Being able to share your knowledge is one of the advantages of blogging, and having a blog can also give you a boost because you want to learn so you can write about it.
• Despite having a rather long title, “35 days left to kill this blog – this is what I call a killer Blog Goal” from Jack at Blog 4 Bloggers had a nice big goal of earning $1,000 a month from AdSense within twelve months. If he doesn’t make it, he’ll delete his blog! Now that’s double-barrelled motivation!

Even more entries

There’s a permanent page with all the entries over at ProBlogger. There’s a lot of them to read, but you’re bound to find something that inspires you. Check them out!

Why goals fail

Let’s face it, we’re often full of enthusiasm when we’re dreaming about what we want to achieve, but gradually the feeling fades and we’re left back at the start – dreaming.

Goals fail because not enough thought and effort goes into achieving them. Setting the goal is only part of the journey, you must put in a conscious and consistent effort into burning the goal into your mind.

Thankfully, there’s plenty you can do to improve your chances of turning your dreams into reality.

Set excellent goals

Many factors go into creating an effective goal, and it’s something I’ll be writing about in more depth in the future. Here are a few key points:

• Be specific – The more specific the goal, the better. “Exercise more” is not specific, but “Exercise every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning before work for twenty minutes” is much better. Doesn’t that sound less like a dream and more like a plan?
• Set a date – As plenty of people have said, “a goal without a deadline is just a dream”. Giving yourself a reasonable deadline can help stop the “I’ll start it tomorrow” syndrome that can creep up on you. A deadline promotes action, and helps you prioritise your tasks. Would your boss ever give you a big project to be completed “whenever”? Didn’t think so.
• Commit to paper – It sounds simple, but it’s a step some people can miss. Write your goals down. This not acts as a form of commitment, but it stops you from forgetting them too!

Plan how you’ll achieve them

Once you’ve got your goals, you need to plan how you’ll achieve them. This process is really down to personal preference, but a good start is to write down the first concrete action you can take toward achieving your goal. If you like to think further ahead, you can write down the next three steps, or a more detailed plan for anything complex. It’s really a case of finding out what works best for you. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different methods until you find something that works.

Mind-mapping can be a great help at the planning stage, and it’s often beneficial to write down as many ideas as you can at this stage. Always go for quantity, and never throw out an idea when you’re mind mapping. The important part is to create a safe environment for your creativity, so you don’t want to stifle it by throwing out ideas at an early stage. Some ideas that sound bad may even turn out to be useful once you’ve had time to think about them. Once you’ve got all your ideas, you can start to review them and put them into a coherent plan.

As an example, if I had a goal of increasing traffic to my blog I’d want to get as many ideas as possible, and then create an easy to follow plan in small steps that I could complete every day. This might include posting on certain days, contributing to relevant forums on a daily basis etc.

If you’re stuck at this part, don’t worry. Solutions have a habit of appearing when you’re least expecting them, so as long as you’re constantly reviewing your goal (as covered in the next section), you’ll do fine. Just make sure you have some paper handy for when the answer arrives!

Review your goals regularly!

Once your goals are committed to paper and planned out, you need to make sure you review them on a regular basis. Reading and re-writing your goals helps to galvanise them, and creates the drive and momentum that will push you to achieving them. Read your goals every morning and every night, and review them every week.

Do what works for you. Write your goals on an index card and carry them around, record them to a tape and play it whilst driving to work, write them on a huge poster and stick it to the ceiling above your bed! The important thing is to really hammer them into your brain. Goals that get forgotten don’t get achieved, so make sure you’re regularly topping yourself up.

Don’t be afraid to tweak things if they’re not going as well as you’d like. Modify plans as regularly as you need to, because even if things are going well, you will almost certainly learn new things that will help you achieve your goals even faster.

The important stuff

To summarise – if you want to achieve your goals, use the following methods:

• Set Excellent Goals – Write down your goals, and make them as specific as possible. Give yourself a deadline to help you prioritise your actions.
• Plan how you’ll achieve them – Once you’ve written your goals down, make a plan as to how you’ll achieve them.
• Review your goals regularly – Review your goals and plans as regularly as required. Burn them into your subconscious!

More articles on goals

This post was written for the ProBlogger “Blog Goals – Group Writing Project”. You can read all about other people’s goals, and a whole host of other goal related information. Be inspired!

I wish all contributors all the best with achieving their goals!