Are your daily actions bringing you closer to your goals? If not, do not expect things in your life to change!

A few weeks ago I listened to a podcast interview of Daymond John, the creator of FUBU clothing line and a Shark on Shark’s Tank. This was a powerful interview that you can listen to here. But, the thing that stood out to me the most from this interview was his goal setting process.

The interviewer asked him to share the one thing that he does daily. I was shocked by his answer. He said that he has nine detailed goals that ranged from business to health and family that he reads at least five days a week. He says he reads them when he first gets up and before he goes to sleep. He wants to start each day with a focus on his goals and go to bed with his goals on his mind.

After listening to this interview, I knew I had to take my goals more seriously. I had set some challenging goals in the past, but I failed to stay on top of them. I had created a goals plan sheet that helped me write out my goals in detail and keep track of them, but I still had a problem with staying consistent.

It does no good to have written goals, but no follow through. I learned from listening to Daymond John that goal setting is important, but a consistent action plan is the key to goal achievement.

Time for a reset

After listening to this podcast, I have a new approach to my goals for this year, and a plan for following through with consistent action.

Our goals plan is not written in concrete or unchangeable terms, but it gives us a starting point and a destination to reach. I have discovered that there are twelve simple steps to goal achievement.

If you struggle with goal setting and achievement, then these twelve simple steps can help you. I am not promising a magical formula that provides a guarantee your goals will automatically happen if you follow these steps. Nor am I promising that you will not have any struggles and everything will happen in your life the way you want at the exact time you desire.

In order to achieve your goals, though, you must make sacrifices, commit daily, overcome challenges and work your plan. No one can do it for you. It is up to you, and these steps will certainly help you successfully reach your goals.

The Twelve Simple Steps

1. Spend quality time alone developing your goals.

I advise you to get alone in a quiet place, away from the distractions of life, and begin to develop your goals plan. Put away your mobile devices, shut down the computer and turn off the television. Tell your family and friends this is your set time for developing your present and future goals plan, and you do not want to be disturbed. Do you have a quiet time and place set aside for goal discovery?

2. Define your goals in writing.

Write down your goals! When you begin to define your goals in writing, make sure they are SMART: Specific – Measurable – Actionable – Reinforcing –Trackable. Written goals will help bring better clarity to your life. When you document your goals you create a road map to focus your directions.

3. Create measures to success

Now that you have defined your goals the next step is to create ways to measure your progress. It’s not enough to say I have a goal, but you need to have a way to measure your progress. Your measures for success can be defined by:

  -Term (length of time)

• Short Term (within a year)
• Medium Term (within three years)
• Long Term (over three years).

  -The Life Area – spiritual, relational, physical, social, financial, mental or  professional

  -Dates – Start date, target completion date and actual completion date.

4. Define possible opportunities for success

One of the keys to staying motivated is to define your opportunities for success. I personally like to list three to four opportunities. You can list as many opportunities for success as you desire. Your list will become a huge motivator in achieving your goals when times of discontentment, discouragement and doubt come.

5. Identify obstacles to success

Now that you have spent time alone developing your goals, writing them down, setting measures to success and defining possible opportunities for success, everything should be smooth sailing, right? Wrong! Obstacles will come to attempt to detour you.

Identify all the obstacles that you know have the potential to detour your goals success. Even after you have identified obstacles that you know might come against your goals achievement, please be aware that there will be some obstacles that may come out of nowhere. Your job is to remain focused on your goals despite where the obstacles originate.

6. Breakdown goals into manageable action steps.

When you have a large goal that you want to accomplish, the best thing to do is break your large goal into smaller, more manageable action steps. If you focus on the enormity of the large goal it can become too overwhelming and lead to frustration and quick burn out.

If you take the large goal and break it down into smaller measureable action steps you set yourself up for success because you make your large goal more obtainable. It is much easier to bust a large stone with several small strikes than one big hit.

(Steps 6 – 12 will be featured in part two of this article)