Achieving Your Goals: The Missing Link

As we come to the end of the year, it is natural to take stock and plan for next year. Deep inside every one of us is the yearning for progress, progress towards our goals and dreams, whatever it may be. A lot of us are battle weary, from countless hopes betrayed, targets unmet from goals set years ago. New Year’s resolution has become a butt of jokes, another name for a dream that does not go the distance. Many believe that new year’s resolutions are mere rituals and wishful thinking. In a way, it is, if there is not a firm plan backed by a commitment to make it happen.

The common trap we fall into while shooting for our goals and dreams is to focus solely on the desired result and payoffs rather than what we need to give up and do daily to make it happen. We romanticize the prize while discounting the price we have to pay. We attempt to break new records rather than focusing on daily incremental shifts and victories that will yield the desired result in the long run.

Knowing where you are going is important no doubt. If you do not know where you are going, you will not know when you get there, if you get there at all. However, if you focus solely on where you are going, you will lose track of what you need to do daily to get you there. You run the risk of running on hope and faith without the requisite commitment to action. What starts to happen is that rather than move closer to your goal, you start to fall behind, get discouraged and eventually give up. This split focus is the single major reason many find it very difficult to hang on long enough to achieve their personal breakthrough. You need persistent focus backed by incremental progress to stay motivated long enough to follow through day in and day out.

If you chase two rabbits, both will escape. Your focus should be on the task at hand. Break your goal into daily tasks, and take each task one day at a time. Channel your energies to the task at hand. Be so focused that you become one in spirit, body, and soul all in alignment. If your mind and spirit are focused on the goal while your body is not making any movement in that direction, you are fooling yourself. Don’t leave your body behind. The three need to act in synergy for you to make progress. Take it one day at a time. Small victories battle after battle leads to winning the war. If you cannot accomplish your daily tasks, forget about the goal. You are indulging in wishful thinking.

A plan is a bridge to your dreams. The plan should be such that there is something you can achieve right where you are, on a daily basis. You need a daily discipline that creates the habit you need to propel you to your goal and dreams.

You also need to know that failure or setback is also part of the plan. Before you succeed, you will fail somewhere along the line. That is for sure. Work failure into your plan. Know that it will show up, expect it, and when it does, you will not be surprised. Failure is a better teacher than success. Failure humbles you and tells you what you did wrong, and if you listen well, you will receive insights into making a better attempt next time. Failure is feedback. Failure always has lessons.

When you launch a new product and you make no sales, the market is giving you feedback. You have two options, either listen to what the market is saying, improve your product, and relaunch, or close up shop. Your attitude to failure determines whether you learn the valuable lessons failure has to offer or get thrown out of the game.

Anytime you embark on a new venture, know upfront that it is time to fail again. You have to keep failing until you succeed. Mission accomplished. You have to make failure your friend rather than an enemy to be afraid of. Fail forward rather than backward.

With this mindset, you are unstoppable. The moment you leave the harbor, like a guided missile your course is set to arrive at your destination. Like an experienced basketballer, the moment the ball leaves your hands towards the net, you know it is a done deal. You don’t need to watch it enter. All that is left is to take a defensive position for a rebound in case the ball is intercepted by an opponent.

After doing a good job of articulating your goals and dreams, it is time to get to the trenches to work the plan, day by day, body, spirit, and soul. Focus on surmounting each daily hurdle, forming a new habit in the process. The moment the habit is formed, it is a done deal. You have set the course to hit the target. You are like a moving train. Nothing can stop you except you. With a new habit in place, you are in a position of strength to face failures and challenges with a winning mindset. With momentum on your side, it is only a matter of time.

The missing link in achieving our goals is focusing on daily our action items and making them happen, developing new habits to support the goal, and gaining momentum towards the finish line. Until you develop sufficient momentum, you are in for another repeat performance. Another hope betrayed.

Do it differently this time. Focus on what you need to do today, focus so much (relentless focus) that you actually get to do it. Take it one day at a time. Keep on keeping on. If you fail today, learn the lessons and return tomorrow. Focus on today. Make today count. When you get to this point, each day moves you a step towards your goal and dreams. After a while, if you look up, you will be amazed at how far you have come and how close you are to your goals. It is a mountaintop experience when you actually see the promised land in the distance. Attainment of your dream becomes inevitable.