How to Consistently Achieve Your Goals: A 5 Step Process

If you are reading this, you are likely someone with goals who wants to improve their life in some way. One thing I’ve noticed with goals is that many people spend a lot of time thinking about them, dreaming about them, and mapping them out…and then never achieve them. Believe me, I have been there many times my friend. Why is this a common experience for so many of us?

It is because dreaming and doing are two very different experiences. Thinking about your goals and what you want in your future is exciting, energizing, and can bring about a lot of hope surrounding what is possible. These are all feelings you want to experience, and therefore thinking about your goals is reinforced by the positive feelings you experience when you do this. On the other hand, doing what it takes to achieve your goals, especially if they will stretch you or challenge you, can be uncomfortable and create feelings of uncertainty. While pushing yourself to achieve your goals, you may question yourself, experience frustration if not seeing the progress you would like, and want to move back to your comfort zone…even if it means not achieving what you said you want to achieve.

I am going to help you understand why this happens and then give you some strategies to fix it. When you understand what is happening, you can challenge it, change it, and make the progress towards your goals that you may have been struggling with. The reason this is a common human experience and happens to most of us, all comes back to our brains. Our brains are wired to try to talk us out of anything that could cause us discomfort, including emotional or mental discomfort. This is because the primitive side of our brain is designed to protect us from danger, and in today’s modern world “danger” includes physical, mental, and emotional discomfort. Because of this, even if logically you know you want to achieve something and you know all the ways achieving a goal will benefit you, as soon as you experience physical, emotional, or mental discomfort your primitive brain will sound off its alarm telling you to stop all action, which results in you not achieving your goal. The good news is that once you know this, you can take action to prevent your brain from holding you back ongoing.

Follow the 5 steps below to start to rewire your brain so that it no longer holds you back from achieving your goals.

• Create your goal and have a strong WHY. Your WHY will help pull you forward when things feel hard. Get really clear about your future when you achieve your goal. What will look different? What will feel different? What are all the ways your life, and perhaps the lives of those around you, will be different when you achieve your goal.

• Get really clear about any negative consequences of not achieving your goal. You want the pull of the WHY and the positive future if you reach your goal, however, some individuals also find motivation in thinking about the negative things that will happen if they don’t take action and see this as a push into the positive future, so having both in your arsenal can help.

• Break big steps into smaller steps and celebrate the wins. If your goal is to lose a certain amount of weight, break that goal into two-to-three-pound increments and give yourself credit for the progress, instead of focusing on how much more you want to lose. If your goal is to gain more customers, focus on the ones you have and how well you take care of them, in addition to each new person who says yes to your product or service, instead of focusing on those who say “no”. If your goal is to find true love, focus on the one positive interaction with someone instead of the interactions that made you feel uncomfortable or tested your confidence.

• Talk back to yourself. I know…this sounds strange, but it works. When you notice that you are slowing down or you completely stop taking action towards you goal, ask yourself why. Dig deep and ask yourself what kinds of things you are telling yourself and what kinds of excuses you are making. Are you suddenly telling yourself you don’t have enough time, that it is no longer important, or that you will likely fail? Challenge those thoughts when you hear them. Acknowledge that what you are trying to do is hard and that it is uncomfortable, and then tell yourself that instead of the uncomfortable feelings being a signal to stop…they are a signal to keep going because they mean you are making progress towards something that is important. Do this over and over and you will rewire your brain so that, in the future, those feelings of discomfort serve as motivation to keep going, instead of signals to stop and give up on a goal.

• Be kind to yourself. It will not all be smooth and there may be setbacks, however, that does not mean you should stop or beat yourself up. What would you tell a friend challenging themselves in the way that you are? Would you be supportive and encouraging or negative and discouraging? Likely you would be supportive and encouraging and you should do the same with yourself.

If you fall along the way, keep getting back up and moving forward. Have compassion and patience with yourself because every step counts, even if you don’t see it in the moment. If you want free tips and strategies that I share exclusively with my community, you can join the Karen Vincent Solutions community HERE. If you need a little extra support in achieving your goals, try working with a life coach who can support you, help you break your goals down, and who can help you manage your mindset, offer accountability, and cheer you on so that you get to the finish line. Reach out to [email protected] if you are interested in learning more.