Ok, going back to the topic at hand of “Hitting the Wall”, let’s move on to the second step in breaking through some barriers.
Setting Goals
Keeping yourself on task is the challenge.
You have to keep the “carrot” in front of yourself to stay focused on the end results.
The last post talked about visualizing your dream or goal. Burning the images, scents and feel of the things you wish to achieve.
Appealing to your senses and keeping that image vibrant is the cornerstone to keeping your desire alive.
But the goal, or step by step timeline, is what you need to give wings to your plans.
Goals have to be SMART:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time Constrained
Specific
Being specific goes back to the entire theory of painting the picture of yourgoal in your mind. In my case, past experiences is what I will use as an example.
Let’s say I want to lose 140 lbs. That’s pretty specific. That made my goal weight 177 lbs.
My current goal is to run a full Marathon. That’s pretty specific. That tells me I’ve got to condition myself to run 26.2 miles.
Because I’ve not done that yet, it’s pretty intimidating.
Measurable
Weight loss is an easy mark here. It’s a number that you can drive. I like numbers and that makes this concept easy for me.
A smart man once told me, “You can expect what you inspect”. If you keep a focus on a target, you can expect the results.
Every goal has got to be something that you can assess and tell whether or not you are moving the needle in the right direction.
You’ve got to be able to see your progress!
Achievable
Having a goal that you know you can obtain is very important.
If the long term goal seems impossible to you, it’s likely going to be harder to keep your internal motivation. Making $20 million when you’re only making $20,000 is a stretch.
So make some short term goals that you can sink your teeth into. Maybe you could double your money to $40,000? It’s a stretch, but not near as much as $20 million, right?
Realistic
This is closely tied to being achievable.
If you don’t believe you can do it, you’ve lost the battle before you’ve even begun.
Some goals can stretch your belief system, for sure. But if it’s so unrealistic from where you are to comprehend and have some hope of obtaining, your mind will come up with any and every excuse not to achieve it.
So, correctly assess where you are reach for something you can actually conceive obtaining.
Time Constrained
There’s no such thing as a goal if you don’t have a time chosen to succeed.
You’ve got to put a time limit on yourself, or the excuse machine will start generating reasons.
“Putting It Off” is one of the biggest killers of dreams. Procrastination is evil.
If you hold yourself accountable to a timeline, you’ll be more likely to stay on track.
And be ready for setbacks!
The world isn’t perfect, and neither are you.
Realize that a delay is acceptable. Just analyze the change and move your target accordingly.
Just have that bulldog mentality.
Latch on to your dream and don’t let go of it.
