1. Successful people are very specific about their goals. Steven Kottler in “The Art of the Impossible”shares that goals are the blueprint for taking us ‘exactly where we want to go’. A trap that many individuals fall into is believing that a good intention such as “I want to be more productive” or a broad aim such as “I want to hit my sales goal for 2022’ will deliver a change in behavior. Deliberate and specific actions build momentum towards achieving goals by identifying the specific behaviors that will be different.
2. Plan time for acting on goals. Dan Pink in “When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing” encourages us to know when our energy is optimal in order to schedule the most important tasks of the day when we have the highest energy. Getting up each morning and making a list of what actions lead us to what matters most helps to create the synergy that connects what matters most to our behaviors. We are all busy people, and it is just this busyness that can prevent us from taking action on our goals. Planning ahead for when we will take action provides us with the momentum to act when it’s most important and eliminates the possibility that we will get to the end of the day and be out of time to take action on the goal.
3. Continuously Monitor Progress. Successful people monitor their progress regularly and adjust their activities accordingly to ensure that they continue to stay on track. Many people set goals at the beginning of the year, write them down and then put the goals in a drawer only to be found at a time later in the year. To ensure success, determine a process for tracking your success-be it a simple tracking log or some visual that keeps your focus on the goal. There are a plethora of tracking programs available to use to ensure movement towards goals. It is important to find ones that will work for your own tracking process.
4.  Adopt a realistic optimist viewpoint. Shawn Achor in “The Happiness Advantage” Goodthink Inc. – bridging the gap between academic research and the real world asks us to be “realistic about the present while maximizing our potential for the future.” He adds that positive people set more goals, put more effort into attaining goals, stay more focused in the face of adversity, and overcome adversity more readily. Simply believing we can bring about positive change increases motivation and performance. However, this optimism must be tempered with reality. A good exercise as you work towards your goals is to reflect upon past successes and the actions that delivered those results. What activities lifted you to success and which ones got in your way? Make a plan to address those activities/obstacles as part of formulating your goals so that if and when they occur you are ready for them.
5. Focus on getting better not simply becoming the best. The most recent information about the brain and the development of our talent tells us that we can get better daily as we make new choices. This is a very different concept from earlier beliefs about the fixed nature of ability and intelligence. Neither one is fixed but we must invest in a consistent process to produce the outcomes we desire. Daily deliberate practices that match our ultimate goal provide us with small manageable behaviors taking us in the direction of getting better. These new behaviors lead to becoming the best version of ourselves.
6. Persist. John Medina in “Brain Rules” shares that our brains are wired to return to doing what we have always done. We need to stay consciously aware of the choices we are making to not backslide into the old behaviors. Additionally, persistence draws upon the commitment to our goals which allows us to overcome the obstacles that we face. One strategy when faced with obstacles is to break the goal down into small actions that lead to success. Just doing one action each day towards your goal will build the momentum to keep you going when you want to give up.
7. Strengthen your willpower muscle. Think about how you can put activities that lead to reaching your goal on the path of least resistance. For example, if you are beginning an exercise program, putting your clothing in your car will ensure you can stop at the gym on the way home from work and not have to return to your house prior to exercise. It will be a gentle reminder that you have made a commitment to your health. Gretchen Rubin in “Better than Before” suggests that willpower is strengthened when behaviors are scheduled into our calendars.
8. Don't tempt fate. Although we can strengthen willpower as discussed above, our willpower is a limited supply. Stephen Guise in “Mini-Habits: Smaller Habits, Bigger Results” shares that there are five major factors which lead to willpower exhaustion; effort, perceived difficulty, negative affect, subjective fatigue and blood glucose levels. Checking in with ourselves on these five variables could help us avoid tempting fate. We are not weak when we run out of willpower-it is a matter of fact. Try to space out the actions that zap your willpower and avoid placing the most taxing willpower draining actions at the end of the day.
9. Focus on the positive. Positive emotional states contribute to our well-being. Remembering that our focus is a choice we make, we can shift our focus from what’s wrong with a given situation to what’s right. Although frequently criticized, the concept of the Losada line suggests that we need three positive emotions to one negative emotion to flourish. Think about the last experience you had. Was it more positive or negative? Did this experience draw you to it or did it push you away? As mentioned earlier, this does not deny that there are negative and unpleasant experiences, it suggests that we can choose where to focus our energy when situations arise.