How to Increase the Achievability of Your Goals?

My "realist" acquaintances have often labelled me as a dreamer, a person who wants too much from life. The wise advice I usually get is to want less because it is more likely that I will achieve it. Have you ever got the same piece of advice?

Should we really aim for less to have the satisfaction of achieving it? Or is it better to aim high, taking the risk of not achieving the goal completely? However, the partly achieved big goal might mean far more than a completely achieved small one.   

I love Marianne Williamson's answers to this dilemma from her book "A Return to Love": "Your playing small does not serve the world."

Dare to dream big … and put it on paper. Otherwise, it will most likely remain a dream. Describe your dream as vividly as you can in the present tense:

• Where are you? Who are you with?
• What are you doing? How much do you earn?
• What value and contribution are you to the world and your community?
• How do you feel? How do those involved and concerned feel?
• Where and how do you live?
• When is all this happening? Etc. 

If you have made your dream concrete and defined it on medium or long term (at least 3-5 years), your dream put on paper is actually your vision of the future. To turn it into reality, you will have to split it into parts and set goals for each part of your dream. The parts will refer to different areas of your life and to different timeframes. For example, you might set goals for the environment you live in, your work and income, your health and wellbeing, etc. 

How should your goal be? The SMART goals are well-known from the organisational environment. Unfortunately, in private life, SMART goals might not be enough to get you motivated to move out of your comfort zone and take action consistently and in the long term. 

You should also check if your goals have the following additional characteristics:

1. They are set in written form. It is important to use as many of your senses as possible to engrave the goals in your mind and communicate them to your subconscious mind. A document with your goals is also a useful reminder you can use every day to engrave your goals into your subconscious mind by reading them aloud.
2. The goals should be formulated using positive words and phrases. Do not use words such as "no", "don't", "lose", "get rid of", "quit", etc. Instead, state the results or the end situation you want to achieve. For example, instead of "quitting this miserable job", say "I am happy and fulfilled in my new job that … (add concrete characteristics)."
3. Formulate your goals in the present tense, as if you were transported into the future moment of their achievement, and you already experience the result in life. This will help you feel the joy and satisfaction of achieving your goal each time you read it.
4. Your goal should be "ecological", meaning that it doesn't have a negative influence on your environment and relationships. For example, if you have any feelings of sorrow and regret for hurting a person you love (for example, you feel like moving away to get your dream job will hurt your parents, and you do not want to cause them pain), the likelihood of achieving your goal diminishes considerably. Or, if you believe that getting a job that implies more responsibilities and comes with a higher salary will negatively affect your relationships, you will unconsciously sabotage your promotion. To be sure that your goals can harmoniously cohabit, start with your life vision covering the most important areas of life, and then turn your vision of each area into long-term goal(s). Uncover your beliefs about how different areas of life influence each other and what success in one area means for the other areas of life.
5. If you have limiting beliefs related to your goal, the area of life of your goal and your ability to achieve it, you should uncover these beliefs to release them and replace them with positive, empowering beliefs. Your beliefs influence your emotions, which, in turn, influence your behaviour and actions, and ultimately your results. For example, if you think you are too old to get a good job in your profession, you will exclude many jobs in the application process, projecting your own belief onto the employer, or you won't be confident enough in your application or at the interview and turn your belief into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Because you believe that any effort is futile, you won't use a wider range of job search techniques that could help you overcome the age bias of certain employers.
6. Your goal should not take away the perceived benefits you value in your present situation, or you should substitute them with other benefits of the same or higher value. For example, if you work in a job for many years, and feel comfortable and safe, even if you are unhappy in that job, you might continue to stay there because you don't want to lose the feeling of safety. How can you preserve this feeling if you start applying for a new job? Is this safety even real, or just an illusion? What other benefits of equal or even higher value could a new job have for you?
7. Your goal should be in harmony with your fundamental values; otherwise, you will be torn apart between what is important to you and your goal, which goes against some of your values, creating a state of cognitive dissonance. Your values will always win in the long term, sabotaging the achievement of your goal. If you have strong willpower, you might achieve the goal, but the journey towards it will be stressful and joyless, and you will feel unfulfilled even when you achieve it. This often happens when you set a goal because of your environment and other people's expectations. Get clear on your core values, set your own goals and check them against your core values.

If you want to achieve your goals and also enjoy the journey, it is important to start with the bigger picture:

• What is your life purpose?
• What kind of life do you want, and what goals should you set for each area of life to achieve your vision?
• Are the goals for different areas of life in harmony based on your personality and your stage of life?
• What are your core values, your guiding principles in life? Will your goals allow you to live according to these values? 

If you need help in establishing your core values, life purpose and vision, book a free 30-minute Clarity Call to assess your present situation and the level of clarity you have about your desired future, and find out how I can help you create a more harmonious, successful and happier future.