5 Powerful Steps to Finally Crush Your Goals
I love the new year because it just feels like a fresh start. But did you know that we can start at any time? We don’t have to wait until the beginning of the year to set new goals or make a resolution, but there’s just something about January 1 that makes it pretty special. It’s a new season and a new beginning.
The old has gone and the new has come. Because of this, we can get caught up in the celebrations and the excitement, come up with a big, burly New Year’s resolution, and forget to actually plan out how to crush the goal we place in front of ourselves.
Without a plan, my guess is you quit your goals by February. And then next year you make more big goals and quit again and the cycle continues. To move out of your comfort zone and take action these are the 5 Powerful Steps to Finally Crush Your Goals.
5 Powerful Steps to Finally Crush Your Goals
It’s easy to start, but it’s usually hard to finish. Part of that is because things don’t just magically happen overnight. Success happens through consistent and persistent action.
If you don’t have a clear direction of where you’re steering, your ship will naturally head off course – or just not be on course at all in the first place. To prepare to successfully crush your goals you need to embark on these important steps to crushing your goals.
- Step 1: Identify your Goals and write them down
- Step 2: Take at least two daily action steps
- Step 3: Find an accountability partner
- Step 4: Monitor your Progress
- Step 5: Reward your accomplishments
We will dive into each step that will motivate and inspire you to take action toward your goals and have a fulfilling life.
Step 1: Identify your goals and write them down
The first step is to identify your goals. What do you want your life to look like in the coming year, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years? Remove any self-doubt and fear of failure out of your mind and decide what it is you want.
Identify your short-term goals, long-term goals, annual goals, business goals, personal goals, spiritual goals, financial goals, and life goals. Once you identify your goals, write them down. Just thinking your goal isn’t enough. There is power in the written word!
When you physically put pen to paper, something magical happens. It’s as though it gets logged in your brain, you remember it easier, and you’re more likely to get off your butt and go do something about it. Instead of a vague idea about what you want to achieve, you end up with a clear picture of what exactly you’re aiming for.
One of the best ways to memorize information is to write it multiple times. Do you remember spelling tests in elementary school? We’d come home with a list of words for the week, and we’d have to practice them daily and write them out multiple times!
Sometimes it was annoying to write, “beyond,” “beyond,” “beyond,” a zillion times in a row, but we did it, and it worked. We can now spell “beyond.” The mundaneness of the repetition made it seem pointless, but the results proved the power of repetition.
If we can do that with words, we can do that with our goals. Writing our goals on paper is a powerful process of setting goals. It helps us to process them in our brains and solidify them in our spirits. I encourage you to write your goals daily in your journal and have a sticky note somewhere visible to remind you of the big dream.
You can also use a physical or online vision board to visualize, motivate, and inspire you. It will help you memorize your goals by keeping them in front of you, and allow them to seep down into your spirit — and that is where the magic happens. The best way to write goals is to write SMART Goals.
How to write SMART Goals
Most experts and successful entrepreneurs recommend setting SMART goals. This is a method of goal setting that is a sure way to achieve success.
SMART is an acronym that stands for:
Specific: The first thing is you need to have specific goals, not a vague idea of what you want to do. This gives you a clear roadmap to work off of.
Measurable: To evaluate the success of your goal, it should be a measurable goal. This can be a number or percentage change or anything that you can quantify and measure. It gives you something solid to work towards.
Achievable: It’s important to set achievable goals as they are inspiring. A big dream is good to have but it’s important to give yourself a reality check. You can have a stretch goal but it should be within reach and the time taken to achieve it should be realistic. When you set a goal that’s too hard to achieve, you end up being discouraged and there are high chances you’ll give up.
Relevant: The goals should be relevant to your values, beliefs, and purpose for your life. Relevant goals are realistic goals that apply to your current situation, season, skills, and environment.
Time-specific: Effective goals have a completion date which gives you a sense of urgency. Instead of setting the deadline for the end of the year, break down your goals into smaller chunks such as weekly, monthly, or quarterly with outcomes and actions that need to be completed for each timeframe. Having a clear finish line is the best way to motivate you to take action and stick to your goals.
Take at least Two Daily Action Steps
Once you are done with the goal-setting process, you need to move to the second step where you come up with an action plan toward those important goals.
Decide which are the manageable tasks that will help you achieve small successes and set you in the right direction. It doesn’t have to be a long to-do list but you can start with two small actions daily.
You probably already know what those two things are that you need to do, you just aren’t doing them yet, or you’re not doing them consistently. Make up your mind and be willing to commit to these daily actions until your goal is completed.
This is a powerful way to stay focused on the key results, give you momentum, and keep the goal top of your mind.
When you are taking consistent action, your decision-making will change from saying, “Yes,” to everything because you don’t want to let anyone down to only saying, “Yes,” to the things that will draw you closer to your goal.
What you allow to occupy your time matters. When you say, “Yes,” to one thing, you are saying, “No,” to something else. What is it that you want to be saying, “Yes,” to?
You don’t have to move the mountain all at once; you just need to move a couple of small boulders every single day, and eventually, the mountain will move. That’s what doing two small actions each day toward your goal does.
It may not appear to be making a difference early on, but with consistent and persistent action and hard work over time, you will appear to be an overnight success.
Need some help setting reasonable goals in the season you’re in? Register for our free workshop: 3 Pillars to Setting and Crushing Goals in a Stress-Less, No Hustle Way.
Step 3: Find an Accountability Partner
Having someone who will help you work toward your goals and dreams is an important step in crushing your goals. You can do it all by yourself, but it’s much, much harder. The simple act of finding an accountability partner makes a world of difference in your personal development.
This person can be a friend or a family member who believes in you and wants to see you succeed. It could be someone in a shared group you’re involved in, or even a coworker whom you trust.
An accountability partner will check in with you from time to time to ensure that you are doing what you said you were going to do. You are essentially reporting to each other what you are or aren’t doing toward the destination you are aiming for.
When you have this foundation in your life, it’s more motivating to continue because you aren’t just giving up on yourself if you quit, but you’re also letting your accountability partner down.
This person can give you moral support which helps you reach your full potential. You stay disciplined and committed when you have an accountability partner. It may the the best thing you can do for yourself and your goals.
It’s harder to quit when you have that additional push and have someone you are answering about the actions you are taking. You’ll feel responsible for seeing your goals to the end and not disappoint the person who’s cheering you on.
I recommend checking in with this person on a weekly basis, whether it’s in writing, on the phone, or over coffee. A short 10-30 minutes a week is all you need to hold yourself accountable for the promises you made to yourself.
Step 4: Monitor Your Progress
When it comes to yearly goals or ambitious goals, it’s important to set aside time to monitor your progress. This is a great way to see the impact of the small steps you’ve taken and what they’ve achieved.
Instead of waiting until the end of the year to see how far you’ve come and what you’ve accomplished, you can do this weekly, monthly, or quarterly. You’ll be pleasantly surprised to realize that all the consistent daily actions you took achieved key results.
This will motivate you and spur you on to be more active and achieve your goals. Monitoring your progress can also point out what’s not working and what needs to be stopped or changed so that you have an effective plan that helps you achieve the desired outcome.
Step 5: Reward your accomplishments
You need to recognize and appreciate the hard work you put into achieving a major goal. When you meet your deadline, achieve your weekly or monthly goal, celebrate it.
It’s so easy to keep pushing toward the finish line without stopping to celebrate the progress you’ve made already through the smaller steps you took. This is a great way of making the goal-setting process creative, fun, and fulfilling.
Your accountability partner can help you decide what meaningful rewards you can give yourself for staying on track with your goals. Celebrating milestones is a bonus incentive that keeps you excited and motivated to achieve your goals.
We don’t make goals just to make them. We set our biggest goals so we can see them come together. But to do that, we need to have a clear direction of where we’re headed and what preparations and actions are necessary to take us there.
The 5 Powerful Steps to Finally Crush Your Goals include identifying your SMART goals, writing them down, and making them visible. Then you need to make a daily actionable plan to create consistency and momentum, find an accountability partner, monitor your progress, and reward your accomplishments.
Have a solid plan, and a clear roadmap then stick to it until you see it through! This is the best way to achieve your goals and reach your full potential.
