Make Every Effort Count: 5 Golden Rules for Setting Goals

We all know that feeling.

There’s a certain something that’s niggling away at the back of our minds. A dream that seems just out of reach, one you never bother to pursue because it seems too hard or unbelievable to attain.

Well, it may not be as far-fetched as you think...you can do anything you want to in this life. Your only limitations are the ones you set for yourself.

So don’t set yourself up for regret.

If you want to succeed in attaining your dreams there are simple ways to achieve them.

One way is to set personal goals using proven methods for success. Keep reading to find out more.

1. Define Your Fears, Not Your Goals

What, exactly, is holding you back?

What is the worst thing that would happen if you failed?

These two aspects stop us from reaching goals more than anything else. We are afraid of failure and it’s stopping us from succeeding. Tim Ferriss, the author of the 4-hour workweek, did a Tedtalk on the very topic of why you should define your fears and not your goals.

In Tim’s Tedtalk, he outlines how to handle life’s most difficult choices. He compares the two choices we have when considering something we wish to attain. The choice of inaction compared to the choice of action. 

Ferriss challenges us to analyze the ups and downs of these two aspects of succeeding. How much will we suffer as a consequence of inaction and how much will we obtain from the action. 

He says that when he applies this to his own life, he finds that writing it out on a piece of paper is a much better strategy than nutting it out upstairs in his head.

He calls this activity “fear-setting” and uses it rather than “goal-setting”. 

Practicing fear-setting can help break the cycle of self-paralysis, a paralysis that holts us from taking action and leaves us regretful that we never took any steps at all toward our goals.

Fear-setting breaks down the scary parts of achieving a goal into manageable portions that aren’t so bad when tackled one at a time.

This helps us tick off easily attained mini-goals rather than tackling the whole problem all at once. Breaking down these fears leads to the next tip.

2. Break Down Your Goals Into Smaller Increments

Sometimes our goal seems so large, so out of reach, that it becomes totally overwhelming. 

Applying the simple practice of breaking our goals down into smaller increments can really make what may seem unattainable completely doable.

Try not to view the entire process of succeeding as one big effort that has to be done all at once, which is completely overwhelming. Don’t allow yourself to think thoughts like “that’s a whole year or five years of hard work, it’s impossible”.

Instead, break it down and ask yourself “what can I do right now or today that will get me a little closer to succeeding?”. 

Take it one step at a time.

And before you know it, you’ll look back over the last week or month or year and see progress. 

There’s nothing more motivating than progress. 

And motivation is the key to success.

Which leads us to our next tip...

3. Set Goals That Motivate You

When you set goals for yourself, it is important that they motivate you. This may mean that whatever you have set out to attain is important to you and there is value in achieving it.

If, however, you have little interest in the outcome of achieving a certain goal then it is likely that you’ll completely lose motivation and focus. Resulting in the chances of you making it happen extremely slim.

Instead, set goals that are of high priority to you. Achieving goals requires commitment, so it’s important to feel motivated to stay committed to your goals.

4. Write It All Down

As Tim Ferriss suggested, with his fear-setting ideology, it is a great idea to write down your fears and it’s just as powerful to write down your goals. The physical act of writing a goal down makes them real and tangible. 

And it sets your intention to follow through with your plans.

However, don’t just whack them down on a piece of paper somewhere and forget about them.

Go and grab yourself a whiteboard. Write down the process of achieving your goals and hang it somewhere you’ll look at every day. Or maybe put them on the fridge so you’ll see it first thing when making breakfast.

And remember to break them into mini-goals. The “what can I do today” portions that are easily attainable chunks of a bigger picture.

5. Keep At It

Achieving goals is an ongoing activity that will eventually turn into a habit. Building daily reminders into your day will help to keep you on track. And writing it all down will help to reiterate what it is you want to achieve.

In the long term, the end destination may remain fairly similar but the actions you take to succeed can often change significantly. 

And that’s ok. 

As long as you stick to an action plan that leads you to your end goal, that’s all that really matters.

At the end of the day, taking action to achieve and failing is better than not trying at all and feeling regretful.

As Jim Carrey puts it, “you can fail at what you don’t want, so you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.”