I want to follow up on my last post about realizing dreams. In order to achieve your dreams, you must set goals. Goals are like dreams, but they include a roadmap to help you plan for success and overcome any obstacles along the way.
Here are 5 steps to help make your dreams a reality:
- Write out your dreams on paper: Don’t worry if they're not perfect. Just write out anything that comes to mind. The first five or ten goals will probably be the most important, but sometimes, it takes a few minutes of thinking to figure out what your really want. Ask yourself some questions to get the creative juices flowing. What do I want to have in the future? How much money do I want? What about family, work, travel, health?
- Make a plan to reach your dreams: You do this by setting goals. Choose a few of the dreams from your list and write them on a separate piece of paper. Then, write out a list of all the things you need to do in order to achieve your goal.
- What’s important?: Rank the activities in order of importance. What absolutely needs to be done first for you to meet your goal? What needs to be done second? Continue this process until you have listed all of your tasks.
- “Right-size” – Break down the tasks into small activities that will take you 10 – 30 minutes to complete.
- Start – Work wholeheartedly on the first activity from your list until you finish it. Once you're done, move on point two. Keep picking away at the activities until they're all complete. This is the hardest stage, but once you start you'll begin to build momentum.
Most people never succeed in life because they do the things they WANT to do, not the things they NEED to do.
Anybody can do the fun things in life, but it’s the successful people who do the nasty little tasks that everyone else hates. Before you start any task, ask yourself one question. “Will this task help me reach my goal?” If the answer is yes, keep going. If the answer is no, stop what you're doing and start a better activity. By asking this question first, you will begin working on higher priority activities instead of just killing time.
