How to Achieve Your Goals (And Make Massive Progress in 90 Days or Less) Part 2
Creating concrete goals can be daunting.
What if you choose the wrong thing? Turning your efforts into a colossal waste of time.
Or you end up hating the thing you chose. Dreading the entire process.
The last thing you want.
Luckily there is a way to make sure you avoid both scenarios when setting your goals.
It all comes down to one thing: an actionable plan.
The key to building momentum is not having to think.
I don’t mean “head empty, no thoughts”.
I’m talking about eliminating as much decision making as possible.
You not only lose the precious time you have to get stuff done.
But also your finite willpower — when you have to constantly make decisions. (aka decision fatigue)
So the clearer your daily priorities are, the more you’ll get done.
Creating goals is easy. However goals alone don’t drive success.
Without the internal motivation of an end goal — a vision.
Your goals can crumble.
So if you don’t have a clear vision — this post can get you started.
All set?
Now let’s turn your compelling vision into an actionable roadmap.
Why “Big Goals” Set You Up for Failure (and How to Fix Them)
Goals are “guesses”. And guesses don’t get results.
Goals have too many variables that you cannot control.
So to make your goals successful — you have to remove as much “guesswork” as possible.
I take my vision and break it down into 4 time frames:
- Quarterly Goals (90 Days)
- Monthly Milestones
- Weekly Objectives
- Daily Priorities
Now let’s break this process down with an example from my vision of 2024: financial freedom.
Define the goals needed to reach your vision
Right now, financial freedom to me is earning $109,120 a month in passive income.
I’m nowhere close to that (yet). But that’s why it’s a vision.
Now odds are that I wouldn’t be able to accomplish that in 90 days.
But perhaps a fourth: $27,380. Definitely possible (aim high).
No guarantees — but you can only get what you want when you go after it.
Don’t stop here. This is still too vague to take action on.
Break each goal into milestones
Break quarterly goals into chunks. These are your monthly milestones.
Ask yourself “What could I reasonably get done in 30 days?”
Goal: I earn $27,380 by the end of June 2024.
A way to reach this goal? Getting paid to write 20 articles at $250 each (extra $5000/month).
Do I know if I’ll be paid exactly $250 / article by the deadline I choose? Nope!
Could be more or less.
However — I’m going to go all out to stack the deck in my favor.
I’m going to learn from someone that has the results I want, and a process I can use.
In this case: Jon Morrow’s Content Marketing Certification has both!
Turn your milestones into smaller objectives
Milestone: I complete the Content Marketing Certification by April 30th, 2024.
See how this is more concrete?
Instead of just a vague income desire. It’s now forming into a plan.
Now ask yourself, “What steps do I need to take in order to complete this milestone?”
The Content Marketing Certification course has 5 Units.
So if I started in March, I could assign myself a Unit per week.
Now I have weekly objectives to help me get this course done.
But there’s still one more level to go.
Then break each objective into daily priorities
Lastly, schedule when you do your objectives by day.
Objective: I complete Unit One of the Content Marketing Course by March 31st, 2024.
Priority: I complete 3 Lessons from CMC Unit One Monday March 25th, 2024.
The point here is to choose the day(s) that you set time aside to do the work.
At this stage, you have complete control over the process.
Whether I’ll hit $5000/mo writing articles by April 30th.
Or $27,380/mo by end of June 2024.
The outcome is still up in the air.
However — showing up and doing the work on this course daily can open the door.
Let’s get our Virgo on (and build a success system)
This might seem tedious as heck. But it will save you so much time and energy in the long run!
When you don’t have to think about what you need to do.
Focusing on the process with the potential to lead you to your goals.
Not the goal itself — is how you win!
Consistent action steps = massive progress over time.
Break your vision down into actionable steps. And you WILL make progress.
(I’m on Unit 4 of the CMC course right now, following my week by week plan. Just changed the dates for these examples~)
