We all have goals we want to achieve. Sometimes they are resolutions we take at the beginning of the year, other times it’s a milestone we want to reach in a ongoing project, and others times again, it is a dream that we secretly want to see come true.

Who doesn’t love a fresh start?  As a new year begins, we set new goals, we are enthusiastic about them and we think to ourselves: “I can totally do this. This year will be different. This year is THE YEAR”. Right?

But if we don’t focus on our goal and monitor our progress, eventually that enthusiasm fades away as time goes by. At the end of the year, many of our goals haven’t been achieved, and there comes another new year. And the cycle of setting goals and not achieving them starts once again. The New Year resolutions phenomenon. How to break that cycle for good?

In case your goal is not related to new year at all, may be it is just that one dream you have that you’d really love to accomplish, but you just don’t see how to get there. How to finally materialize that dream?

This article will give you 5 steps that will take you nearer to your goal or your dream.

The following action steps are important and necessary preliminaries in my opinion to be successful with what we want to achieve:

•  we have our goal written: This is the first step of materialization, we make our goal or dream  come from just being a thought to becoming something we can see. Write your goal or your dream on paper or in a document on your computer.

•  we know the reason why we want to achieve this goal: The more aligned our goal is with the things that we value highly and that we love to do, the more likely we are to stick to it until its achievement. Create a connection between what is most important to you and your goal.

• we are committed to our goal: Our commitment to our goal insures that when things become challenging, we do not give up. Just because we love doing something doesn’t means that it will not be challenging at times. When we are highly commit we embrace both the pleasure and the challenges that come with our goals and we keep going in difficult times.

• we have established a plan: Fail to plan, plan to fail. What will it take to achieve your goals. Find at least 5 major steps you will need and then chunk them down into doable sub-steps. Be  aware of the obstacles that you will encounter and have a plan for them too.

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail!” – Benjamin Franklin

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The above points are very important in the process of achieving our goals, and to me they are part of the big planning phase. Now let us have a look on 5 actions that will help us stay with our goal until it accomplishment.

1 – Chunk Your Goal into Baby Steps and Introduce Fun

Divide the goal into measurable small steps and get started right away, introducing fun whenever possible.

Without measurable baby steps, you might start enthusiastically, but after a while, you might be discouraged because you cannot see progress. You will miss the necessary energy to carry your goal to the end and crash like a big wave on the shore.

If you start with baby steps and have fun in the process, you will build momentum. In the long term you will see continuous progress while staying mentally focused, healthy and balanced.

It is better to work daily 5 minutes on a project than to wait to have more time before we start the project and as a result never get started. For difficult and important tasks, it helps to start first thing early in the morning.

2 – Continuously Re-Commit and Persevere

Challenges are tests to find out how much committed we are. Know that they will come and be prepared. Do not to give up when the challenges arise instead re-commit to your goal.

Nearly after 3 months of blogging, I was facing the challenge of conflicting expectations and current results. To be able to continue, I had to remember the reason why I started it in the first place. Then I renewed my commitment and adjusted my plan.

Commit for the long term. Depending on the project you might need more than one month or one year before you can see the results you are expecting.

If you commit only for a short period of time, it will appear that your efforts are lost because the results are not proportional to them. You might get discouraged although you were on the right path.

But if you stay committed for a long period, and you keep doing the right actions, you will harvest the results when the right time has come. So commit and persevere.

3 – Be accountable to your Support Group

After you have started some baby steps towards your goal and have promise yourself to stay committed until the goal is reached, tell someone else about your goal and ask them to be your accountant on this.

Create a group of people who care about you and the people you care about, but most importantly people you trust and who are going to be supportive.

Give them feedback on what you are doing on a regular basis. It can be a weekly meeting or some casual updates. They will help you in the process and you can get feedback from them too, on what you can improve. You will have somebody to remind you when you have forgotten your goal, someone to share your excitement with, or someone to talk about challenges and when things don’t go the way you’ve planed.

4 – Track your Progress and Celebrate your Achievements

Have measurable milestones to know that you are going forward. After you have started, know that the enthusiasm will go away after some time. Commit to continue the process towards your goal even when you don’t feel like it.

For every reached milestone, it is important to acknowledge your achievements and to celebrate them appropriately.

If you would like, you can track your daily progress in a word editor or a notebook. Write down the date, what you have done that day and for how long. You can also record what the next step is. This will help you stay focused and will motivate you to progress.

5 – Meditate Regularly

When we meditate the essence of our motivation takes roots deeper within. The awareness of our goal and the reason why gets clearer. When the why is clear, we find fuel to keep on going even when the situation becomes difficult.

Meditation as well as prayer helps us tap into the Infinite Power. It can be helpful to ask the Infinite Wisdom or God to be our partner in our projects while we have faith and keep giving our best.

Meditation reinforces our commitment towards our goals. It also help us to adjust our trajectory when our goals are not – anymore – in alignment with ourselves. Additionally meditation can strengthen our will power.

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Why not start right now? To transform your current goal into an achievement, I encourage you to go right now and work for 15 minutes on it. Keep on going from here, don’t stop until the end and have fun in the process.

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