life coach toronto success & goal
There really is no mystery involved in how to set and achieve your goals, providing you are committed to doing the work. Most of us already know the formula, yet we just don’t apply it except when doing so is easy and requires no sacrifice.
1. Be realistic about your goals. Passion and dreams are realistic; counting on winning the lottery is not. Be realistic, and make sure you have a burning desire for it. If you can envision the end result, it’s a dream worth pursuing. Write your goals down in clear, specific language. Set your sights high, but understand that to climb Mt. Everest you’ll need more than a couple of energy bars, a water bottle, and a sturdy pair of shoes. Most of the big goals we have in life, the ones related to our passions and purpose, require substantial emotional investment, and these are often accompanied by investments of another sort—physical effort, time, money, or education. Be prepared to sweat. Better yet, look forward to it: don’t let the size and scope of your goal scare you off but excite you. A challenge can be a wonderful, invigorating incentive.
2. Be committed to your goals. Just as you set automatic goals (e.g., eat, sleep), dedicate regular time and effort toward achieving your goal. Make yourself accountable—to yourself, to a friend, or even to a life coach. That is, set up some requirement for tracking your progress. If you slip, make a note of it; don’t punish yourself, but don’t reward yourself, either. If you make good or great progress, reward yourself, as long as the reward doesn’t set you backward. That is, if you are trying to save money for a specific purpose, don’t spend money to “celebrate” that could have been used to advance your progress. Find something else that’s positive.
3. Work toward your goal using your strengths, but don’t ignore your weaknesses. Everyone has talents and natural skills. Using these to achieve your goal will make life much easier and more pleasurable. Recognizing areas where you need to improve yourself—or delegate—will also make working toward a goal progress more smoothly. Don’t depend on pure adrenaline and bullishness to advance toward a goal: assess and appraise your inner and external resources, and learn the best way to employ and leverage them to move you closer to your goal.
4. Map out your goal. Lay out a logical sequence of requisites and prerequisites. For example, if your goal is to run a foundation that aids the homeless in your city, some of the points on your map might include learning to manage people, researching statistics on the local homeless population, and studying similar organizations. Learn to anticipate obstacles and plan ways to blast through them, take them apart, tunnel under or around, or avoid altogether. Sometimes obstacles are inspirations in disguise, too, so don’t let what looks like a brick wall paralyze you when it might actually be a sign that it’s time to design a door.
5. Set deadlines for your goals. Create a schedule that plots out the length of time it will take to achieve your goal. Add interim milestones to break the goal into smaller “mini-goals” so you can see progress along the way. This does not need to be a detailed business plan. It’s just a road map to a destination, with directions from point A (e.g., “assistant”) to point B (e.g., “manager”) and on to point C (e.g., “director”).
6. Don’t get obsessed. Working toward a goal is wonderful, and focus is important. But devoting your every waking thought, act, and effort toward a single goal isn’t healthy, it’s obsession. Spend some time relaxing and enjoying yourself. Share your time, money, and rewards with others, and you’ll find that not only is the time more enjoyable but you’ll actually achieve your goals faster since you’ll most likely end up being helped along by others and by your reduced stress levels. Don’t expect, either, that you will know all the answers or always stay on target. Stay flexible but committed, and you will continue to move forward.
7. Let your success seed further successes! You already prove your success on a daily basis, so take that success and make it grow. Your own growth will quickly follow. Take that mountain and make it into a molehill. You’ll be surprised how easily you will reach the next plateau. When you get there, raise your fist in the air, and shout “Victory!”
Make 2012 a year to remember with life coach toronto Bruno LoGreco
