You Can Achieve Your Goals

BY SALLY LEE
Ariel Enterprises

There are many different ways to set goals; pick what works best for you

In late December, I was talking to my family about New Year's resolutions. I asked them what resolutions they had, and their responses surprised me. Apparently, they do not make resolutions anymore. They were so convinced that resolutions were useless, that they have stopped making them. Although in one way, I admired the honesty of this approach, in another way I was somewhat shocked. Achieving your goals is one of the most important things in life, and just because you meet with some failures does not mean you should stop setting concrete goals. After all, you have no chance of learning how to achieve your goals if you never set them!

There are many different ways of setting goals. A lot of people have one method by which they claim you can achieve your goal, but in my experience different methods work for different people. Some people, for example, rely heavily on religious faith to achieve their goals. They will tell you that to achieve your goals, you need Christ, or some other commonly known religious figure at the center of your life.

This isn't the only way to achieve goals

This may work for them, but it is not the only way to achieve your goal. Other people have a much more concrete approach to setting and achieving goals. They say that, to achieve your goals, you have to think and act like a highly successful person. They use psychological tricks and personal affirmations to help achieve your goal. In many ways, these affirmations work much like religious faith does for those who are more interested in it. Rather than using faith in God to achieve your goals, these people advocate using faith in yourself.

Still other people say that the best way to achieve your goals is through therapy and counseling. They say that the reason people are dysfunctional is because they have certain deep conflicts holding them back from achieving goals in their lives. They advocate all kinds of different therapies to achieve your goals, from solution focused therapy, to psychotherapy, to life coaching.

In my personal life, I believe that the best way to achieve your goals is to combine elements from all of these approaches. If I feel alienated from myself and my goals, sometimes I will make a list and figure out what I have to do, and other times I will pray to God for guidance, or seek out a therapist. The best way to achieve your goals is to figure out what works for you, and for me it depends on the goals, and on what is holding me back.

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Goal-setting for every season

Have you ever noticed that with the beginning of each season there seems to be a push for people to make improvements in their lives?

When the New Year arrives most people talk about making new years resolutions. When spring comes people talk about wanting to shed a few pounds to fit into summer apparel. In the fall people discuss that they are going to plan for holiday time better and during the holidays people make promises to make more of an effort to stay in touch with family members and friends.

Usually within a few weeks of making a statement about changing our ways we are back to our old routine.There are a few tips that you can take to help achieve your goals.

One of the most important things to do is to write down the goal that you want to work on. By writing the goal down you are making more of a commitment to work on this area of your life. If you seriously want to achieve your goals discuss them with the important people in your life.

By sharing what you want to accomplish with others they can help keep you accountable by asking you what you are doing to achieve your goals. Give your friends and family permission to remind you what you have said you want to accomplish.
When you are working towards something, it is often easy to forget or overlook small steps that are made to achieve your goals.

Keeping a journal helps in the process

By keeping a journal of the steps that are taken to achieve your goals, you can look back and see that you have been working on things, or you can look back and realize that you have not been making effort and that you need to put more time into what you want to accomplish. The goals we set for ourselves are meant to better our lives and to increase our happiness.

The journey towards goal achievement does not have to be paved with self-denial and pain. Make an effort to enjoy the steps made along the way. Bask in the glory of making small improvements. Things are not going to change overnight. If a goal is worth writing down and talking about, it is most likely going to take a while to achieve it.

So often people let their goals fall by the wayside because they feel defeated if they do not accomplish them immediately. When you are writing down the goals that you are working on, also write down a reasonable timeframe in which to complete them. Do not make the time so long that you will procrastinate, and don't make it so short that you are setting yourself up for failure. Be realistic and take time to enjoy the journey to achieve your goals.