Be One of the 20% of People Who Vividly Describe Their Goals
You’ll be 1.2 to 1.4 times more likely to succeed
Vividly describing your goals in written form is strongly associated with goal success, and people who very vividly describe or picture their goals are anywhere from 1.2 to 1.4 times more likely to successfully accomplish their goals than people who don’t.
— Mark Murphy, Senior Contributor on Forbes
Without having a plan of attack in place for a project, I am a shocking procrastinator. I just suck at doing stuff if I am being held accountable either by myself or others. Procrastination is a terrible plague in this age of endless distraction. As well as the obvious offenders, including but not limited to, phones and social media, I’ve also come to realise that by focussing too much on what other people are doing you can lose track of what you are doing.
We all have different ‘go’ rates, some people are just super high-energy all the time, and others are a lot calmer and more measured. We all move at different speeds through life and it’s easy to get thrown off by other peoples’ ‘go’ levels. We don’t often realise this though, and so maybe we spend a lot of time around friends who have higher ‘go’ levels than us, and as a result, we might feel like we are losing energy by just trying to keep up with them.
If we realise this is happening we can bring ourselves back to our centre. From there, we can refocus on what we’re wanting to accomplish without judging ourselves against other peoples’ projects that we might otherwise become envious of. I think this is what’s happening if you’ve ever had one of those moments where you’re like “How does X person achieve so much so quickly?” or “How is X person’s work always so good, I wish mine could be at that level”.
Honey, you’re doing just fine. Go at your own pace, but if you really want to succeed, you do actually have to keep going. Don’t give up, unless of course, you do actually want to change what you’re doing, or, most importantly, if it’s not healthy for you to continue, even if you do want to keep going.
On that note, here is how I have learnt to plan routines for my work and projects.
Planning
Once you have identified what you want to work your way towards, you can start thinking about how you might go about getting there.
When you write out a set of steps that will theoretically lead to the goal you have envisioned you are much more likely to actually achieve it, compared to just holding a vague idea of the necessary steps in your mind.
When you don’t write plans out, it’s easy for them to get lost amongst all the ideas you have stored in your brain. Being able to look at something physical that captures your goal is a great way to hold yourself accountable. Therefore, you are more likely to remember what motivated you to form the goal in the first place and of your work towards it thus far.
Personally, I started writing down what some of my most important goals were around a year ago, and I revisit my goals diary at least every few days. I also tick or highlight my steps towards my goals as I achieve them, which helps a lot to keep me motivated. When I see how far I’ve come, it reminds me how capable I am to at least try to achieve the rest. No matter how big a goal or dream is and how confident you feel about your ability to achieve it, you’ll certainly never know until you give it a try.
What’s the worst that could happen when chasing a dream? You won’t get there. However, you will have the satisfaction of knowing that you tried.
Simplify your life so that you can focus on what really matters to you
A practical template of step-by-step actions that I initially made for myself, which might help you too.
Aim: To reduce unnecessary things/things I’m doing in my life that I don’t really want or need!
Hypothesis: I believe this is going to make me happier, stronger, and more self-confident.
Method:
Step One: Make a list to decide on the things I want to keep in my life and the things I want to let go of.
Step Two: Start cutting things out. Simplify. Dump the unwanted. Throw out the heavy, unnecessary baggage; mentally, emotionally, physically!
When: Starting from now.
Who: Me.
How: Just do it.
Why?: Because there is too much clutter in my life and brain right now and I want to live a good, happy life.
Step Three: Take life on your own terms. Riding the wave of someone else’s decisions is fun sometimes but it’s theirs, not yours, and you will reach the shore sooner or later.
What really matters to you? Take some time (days/weeks/months/maybe years) to figure this out. It could be a short time or a long time, and that’s okay.
Step Four: Plan out how you will achieve your ideal lifestyle. Things often deviate from the plan a bit, but having a good starting point can stop anxiety before it starts.
Step Five: Get the resources you need to make those changes.
Step Six: Act on those choices. You have the plan and the resources, you are set for the adventure to a beautiful journey of your choosing.
Take more risks. The easy road is not the most exciting.
For whatever you want most in life you make 10 attempts. Out of the 10, nine may fail and the tenth may be the one that succeeds.
Dare to fail on your path time and again and maybe after ten attempts, or 100, you will reach your goals. Regardless of whether you persist until you get to that point or not, no effort is ever wasted and you will have grown invaluable in a myriad of ways. Don’t ever settle for anything less than you want.