You've Set Your Goals - Now What?

Are you one of those people who frequently set new goals but lose sight of them over the next few days or maybe even the next few hours ?

A goal is an extremely powerful self development tool if used the right way.

Think of a goal like a GPS devise in your car. It can help you with direction. It can guide you. But it cannot, on its own, take you to your destination. You need to find the motivation, deep within you, to drive the car to your destination.

So if you don't know how to use your goals correctly, they can also end up being a source of constant frustration.

So how do you ensure that you actually achieve the weight reduction goals that you were bragging about yesterday ?

Goal-setting strategies can help you create the type of success that you desire.

Here are five goal-setting techniques to help you realize them.

1. Ecology Is The Key: Goals can be of different types - developmental goals, financial goals or maybe material goals. No matter what the category, your goals should be aligned to your values. Always do an ecology check to ensure that there is a proper balance between your goals and your values. If there is a mismatch between your wants and your values blueprint, chances are, you will fail.

2. If You Can't Write Down Your Goals, You Probably Won't Achieve Them: Make your goals real by writing them down. Put them down on index cards and review them regularly. Focus on them daily. Don't just set goals and hope that you will achieve them. Writing down goals sends a clear message to your mind that you are serious about your achieving your goals and fires up your nervous system to start taking action.

3. Visualize Your Goals: Research says your mind does not know the difference between a real experience and a vividly imagined one. Visualize you goal every day adding as many sensory inputs as possible - see what you'll see on achieving your goal, hear what you'll hear. If possible, imagine the smell, touch..etc. make the experience as vivid as possible. Give your mind a clear blueprint to work on. Day dreaming is good (at least till we reach Point No:4). But then, you always knew that, didn't you ?

4. Chunk It Down: How do you eat an elephant ? The answer is, one bite at a time. Now apply this same principle to achieving your huge goals. Break them down into smaller chunks and focus on achieving them. Unless your name is Clark Kent, you will find it very difficult to complete a marathon race in a single step.

5. Plan Your Actions And Then Take Massive Action : Goals are useless if they end up being mere items in your to-do list. A goal without focused, massive action, is nothing more than a pipe dream. Plan specific action steps that will take you closer to your goal and then act on them. Once you decide to do something, nothing should stop you from achieving your goals. If you are not sure, go back to watching your favorite TV channel.

6. Publicize Your Goals: Talk to a few people around you about your goals. This will provide you with an incentive to work harder to achieve them. The principle of social validation will take care of that. If you still don't achieve your goals, you can always leave the town.

Sharing your goals with your close ones and friends will also get you support and encouragement when it really matters.

7. Q.I.F.W (Quitting Is For Wimps): NLP says - There is no failure, only feedback.

If Edison was afraid of failure, chances are, all our dinners would still be candle light dinners. If you fail once, don't be afraid to try something else.

A flight from New York to London is not a simple straight line flight. There are be a thousand factors up there that will try to throw a plane off course - air currents, sudden drops in pressure, rough weather...etc. The on board computer and the pilot have to make a number of course corrections to ensure that the plane safely reaches its destination. If the auto pilot or the human pilot just quits, the result will be disastrous.

So once you've locked onto your goal, decide that you will stop at nothing until you achieve it. If the goal is worth setting, it's definitely worth achieving.

Before you know it, you will have achieved your current goal and will be busy setting the next one.