How to Reach Your Goals and Dreams
Actions to Put You on the Path to Success
All dreams and goals start as a seed. That little seed of a thought in your mind that you feel drawn and determined to set out to accomplish.
Goals are personal and can be of any kind or size. Maybe you’d like to get in shape and improve your health, or learn a new language, or clear out the clutter in your home, improve your finances, or maybe start a new business.
Whatever the goal, if your mind is not on your side, it simply isn’t going to happen.
So, what can we do to get our mindset in place to crush those goals?
1. Set intentions.
The most enthusiastic and persuasive cheerleader to have on your side is (surprise) you.
Desire is nice, but it’s just not enough.
You need an all-out internal cheer squad to power through to the end of the game.
Getting serious about making goals happen requires starting out by setting intentions.
Setting your intentions means deciding to achieve the goal, believing it is do-able (despite your fears), and declaring deep inside your heart and gut that it is possible (even though you still feel doubt).
Setting an intention is the first step to making your goals happen. And don’t just set them in your mind. Write them down. Make a vision board with positive, inspiring images and notes about you will feel when you’ve accomplished the goal, keep post-it notes of encouragement on your desk, in your wallet, on your bathroom mirror.
Sounds corny, but I guarantee that no one else is going to encourage you, to the extent and frequency that you need it, but yourself! Not even the most supportive partner or friend has the energy or enthusiasm to continually motivate you.
“When a woman becomes her own best friend life is easier.” – Diane Von Furstenberg
I hear all the buts… the reasons you’re thinking it’s different (and somehow harder) for you.
Maybe you’re right. Some of us have more challenges than others. But we’ve all seen people with far greater obstacles achieve great things. Why? Because they set intentions and believed they could!
Regardless of your challenges, whether you decide to make lemonade from the lemons is up to you alone!
2. Do the crawl.
No, I don’t mean a bar crawl! Just like a baby learns to crawl before figuring out how to stand up and walk, so too do you have to find smaller steps toward your bigger goals to feel success more frequently.
Our sights are set on a big goal and it’s hard to see the progress we’re making if we only have our vision focused on the end game. The final win.
It can be deflating and depressing when we don’t feel like we’re making progress.
By breaking our bigger goals into smaller, more achievable sub-goals, we experience more frequent wins and that helps to keep us moving forward.
Small wins add up to big wins in the long game.
3. Avoid derailments.
Comparisons are dangerous. The fastest way to derail from the path to your goals and dreams is to fall into the comparison trap. If you’re looking for it, you will always be able to find someone doing basically anything better than you
Stop yourself when you find your mind becoming the enemy.
Stop yourself when your ego starts talking you down the rabbit hole instead of up and out.
Stop yourself when the dark side starts whispering to you why you can’t do what someone else has done; why you aren’t enough; how someone else is better or more deserving that you.
Stop yourself when you think it doesn’t matter if you crack open and devour the entire bag of Hint of Lime Tostitos because you’ll never be as perfect as others appear anyway.
Put down the bag and get out of your own head!
And while you’re at it, get out of other people’s business.
Unfollow people and accounts on social media that make you feel bad or unworthy or like you’ll never measure up. There’s a difference between finding inspiration from someone’s posts who has achieved a similar goal to yours, versus seeing their posts and feeling icky, uncomfortable and less than.
Learn to follow your gut.
Getting in touch with gut feelings and reactions to what you see is a learned art. Start by going with your first feeling – and unfollow as necessary. Trust yourself.
4. Dump the negative self-talk.
The person most likely to talk you out of moving forward and achieving your goals and reaching your dreams – is you. By the same token, the ideal person to have on your side and leading your cheer squad, is also you.
So, mindfully decide to talk yourself into feeling capable of achieving your goals and that you will make your dreams reality. Talk yourself up about being enough, being capable and deserving of reaching your goals (even if you’re not entirely convinced).
The more you tell yourself it’s possible, the more possible it is.
Regularly feed and nourish your mind and heart with self-belief. Lay down self-love support poles for yourself that run deep into the ground, so they stand strong when the tide is rough and threatens to wash it away.
Support poles like the vision board, the little notes, the affirmations, the uplifting and inspiring social media feed.
I hear you. You’re saying it’s not easy. I get it. I struggle some days too.
That tempting bag of Tostitos was in my own hands just this morning. But I do know this:
If you set intentions, create sub-goals, and build a base of self-awareness – a foundation of self-talk skills and mindful thought – you may still get derailed occasionally, but you’ll be able to guide yourself back onto the tracks, moving in the right direction to reach your goals and dreams.
Cheers to knowing yourself better, to embracing your inner cheerleader, and to taking the action that help you to reach your dreams and goals faster!
– Marlene
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