How to Finally Become Successful in 2019
Goal-setting for the new year is nothing new, I am sure that you have done it for many years now. But the resolution to achieve those goals didn’t even survive a quarter of the year for most of us. There might be many reasons why this happened in the previous year and the year before that and so on. Maybe you weren’t motivated enough or you gradually lost your interest in pursuing that goal (sometimes this might have happened as the process got harder!) or maybe you completely forgot about it and settle back into your usual cozy life.
If your 2018 resolutions ended up in any such ways, then don’t be down about setting goals this year because you can fix it. You can adopt a better system. But first, let’s look into why things happened so in the previous year and learn a few lessons from our failures.
Look once more at the reasons above:
- Lack of motivation
- Waning interest
- Getting sidetracked
Lack of Motivation
Motivation is necessary for achieving our goals, without it we would soon become stagnant.
So can we get motivated regularly?
Most often it is hard to get motivated by the goal itself. Waking up at 5:00 AM will never motivate you, instead, what will motivate you is what you can gain by waking up at 5:00 AM.
So always when setting a goal, ask yourself the question: “Why do I need to do this?”
If your goal is to earn more money, ask: “Why do I need more money?”. Maybe it is to finally pay off that debt. If your goal is to get in better shape, constantly remind yourself how your world will be different if you got into better shape or better health.
Figure out the reason why your goals matter and note them down with those goals. It is the best way to build self-motivation.
Waning Interest
This is the situation where you become lethargic. It is always much interesting and much easier to keep planning and dreaming about the things you are about to do than to actually do the hard work.
The best way to keep this from happening is to hold yourself accountable. Don’t keep your goals to yourself, share it with a close friend or relative and tell them how serious you are about it. Once you know that you will be asked about your progress, you will more determined to complete the work.
Here’s an example:
Have you heard about the Inklings?
They are a group of writers that met regularly. The group included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, two names that are pretty familiar to some. But there was a group of 19 men and they got together once or twice a week for about 17 years to review each other’s ongoing work.
“My theory is that 92% of The Lord of the Rings was written on a Wednesday night because Tolkien knew on Thursday he’s going to have to be looking at C.S. Lewis’s face and Lewis was going to say, “Last week you said you’d tell us what was going to happen next in the story. What did you write?”
– Diana Glyer (In The Portfolio Life with Jeff Goins)
So keep yourself accountable with a friend or, if possible, a group of like-minded people like the inklings, it will hugely increase the chance of you accomplishing your goals.
Getting Sidetracked
“The first attribute of SMARTER goals is that they’re specific. Focus is power. You can drive the same amount of water through two pipes and create greater force in one of them just by reducing its diameter. That’s similar to what happens when we narrow our goals. Vague goals don’t really inspire us. And it’s hard to know where to put what little effort and creativity we are willing to invest. Specific goals create a channel for our problem-solving skills, effort, and more.”
– Michael Hyatt in Your Best Year Ever
Setting specific goals makes your direction and your path clear.
For example, you are more likely to pursue a goal mentioned as “Create an online course and grow it to $1000 per month revenue” than the one that says, “Earn more money.”
So be specific. It will increase your chances of pursuing that goal by narrowing your focus.
