4 KEYS TO STAYING COMMITTED TO YOUR GOALS
One of the most difficult tasks people face is staying committed to the pursuit of their goals.
The capacity to manage relationships, career, health or even your finances is difficult at times. That’s why we often neglect those and other things that are important to us.
Managing life requires commitment. How many stories or biographies about successful people have you read where the narrative involved smooth sailing or an easy path toward success? Very few I would imagine.
Success requires discipline, hard work, perseverance, tenacity, will, courage and faith. With that in mind, here are some guidelines for persevering with your goals — no matter what life throws at you.
So, here are 4 keys you should do to stay committed to your life and career goals.
1. Develop Successful Habits
Many of your day to day tasks are habitual in nature. Some of them have been with you were a child. The key is to create daily habits that will draw you closer to your goal.
Identify and become aware of negative habits, and then replace them with positive ones. To illustrate, when I sit down to write or research I find myself
Maybe it’s wasting time surfing the internet on occasions, and you actually realize that you are borrowing time from a more important task. How do you stop this habit? Disable your internet connection for a while so you can focus on that more important goal.
Whatever the new habit needs to be, continue with it until it becomes second nature — until you have a firm grip on it. Phase out the old habit by replacing it with the NEW, empowering habit.
2. Be Accountable To Others
I believe it’s a real benefit to be accountable to someone. You gain the value of having someone else critique you and possibly make really great suggestions on areas for your improvement. Being accountable means you make a commitment to someone else, someone you trust.
And that commitment to someone else will help you stay focussed on the goal at hand since you don’t want to disappoint the other person.
Try to find someone who has achieved a similar goal in their own life or who has similar experience. However, at times it is possible someone unrelated to your intended goals may serve an unbiased perspective.
3. Focus On Small Victories First
One of the keys I always advise people on is to focus on smaller victories first rather than trying to focus on larger goals. That will help draw you closer to your goal quicker. For example, if your goal is to run a marathon, you might set a specified period in which to realize the goal.
It might be a ten month project or more in which you undertake smaller goals along the way. Completing your first 10K run and gradually building up to competing in longer distance events would be a logical progression.
Focussing on smaller victories first builds your self confidence. And that confidence helps to empower you on the right path. You might stumble at times, but you pick yourself up and start walking down that road again.
Focusing on smaller victories first allows you to get rid of the kinks before pursuing the larger goals.
4. Develop An Insatiable Hunger
This is the most challenging part of achieving your goals. What makes some people pursue their goal with such strong desire while others give up when the going gets tough?
Successful people are unrelenting in the pursuit of their goals. They experience setbacks and failures just like you and I, but what sets them apart is the ability to get back on track and learn from their mistakes immediately. It’s their ability to do this time and time again until they achieve the goal that sets them apart.
Successful people believe in themselves. They have an inner resolve that feeds them with images and a belief in their ability to succeed. These inner empowerments cancel out any external doubts that might arise in the pursuit of their goal.
It’s time for you to discover the reason for pursuing your goal. Why you want to achieve that goal? Who will you become once you’ve attained it? What will life look like when you’ve reached your goal?
When you develop a “commitment” to achieving your goal, then roadblocks and failures are only speed humps instead of stop signs. Successful people are able to adapt, know what they want and always look for the HOWS of achieving their goals.