My Top Five Tips to Achieve Your Goals:

So 2020 is here and with every new year we all love to set new goals and aspirations for ourselves, like getting in shape or just getting your life together.

But a lot of time, these goals never come into fruitition.

Why? Well because goals without a plan aren’t goals, there just dreams.

So in this blog post I’m going to share my top five tips on what works for me when it comes to acheiving my goals to hopefully help you with yours, no matter what they are.

Have some patience, you’ll get there.

When you set yourself a target, you want to acheive it by yesterday. As a result when results arent seen straight away all motivations go out the window so you give up. Sound familiar?

It might sound cliché but you really have to see the light at the end of the tunnel here. Its not going to happen straight away.

Accept its not going to be a perfect process, it will get ugly at some stage, but it’ll be worth it.

Acheiving a goal is not as simple as setting it and then just getting there. Your going to be dragged on a rollercoaster of emotions, physical and mental states. There will be days where you work your ass off and then therell be days you just couldnt be arsed. There’ll be days where you feel like your nearly there and there’ll be days where you feel like you’ve acheived nothing.

As long as you stay consistent with your efforts i.e don’t give up you will get there.

Take the Leaving Cert for example. You’ve been studying (hard), some day you do loads, some days you do none and some days you failed your Mocks even though you’ve been trying hard to do well. You’ve been trying so hard yet you came up short, but it should’nt demotivate you because the Leaving Cert is the goal and not the Mocks, with consistent effort you’ll be so much more ready for the Leaving Cert.

Okay so that might’ve been a little pep talk for me more than anything else. But you get the idea.

With that out of the way now lets get to how to really achieve you goals. Like I mean smash the sh*t outta them.

My Top Five Tips To Achieve Your Goals:

1. Write down your goals:

I’m sure you’ve heard this before but there is actually some science behind it. Writing down your goals and breaking them down into monthly, weekly or even daily targets or goals makes you 1.4 times more likely to actually achieve them.

Why?

Well by writing them down your goals now have a physical form. Everytime you see that copy or piece of paper you’ll be reminded of your goals hopefully motivating you to keep working towards them. On a deeper level, by writing them down your brain builds a mental image of the end result and the process you need to go through to get there, allowing your brain essentially get geared up to working towards your goals.

2. Planning is essential:

Planning is essential if you want to achieve anything. It gives you a clear picture of what you need to do daily and weekly to acheive your goals. Studies have also shown that by putting a date, place and time on something you want to do, you are more likely to actually go and do it.

So lets say your trying to get in shape, and as part of your plan to get there you want to go for a run once a week. Instead of just telling yourself you’d go for a run, put a place, date and time on it. So for example instead of saying ‘I’ll go for a run this week’ write down in your weekly planner or calender or phone notes or something ‘On Wednesday at 4 pm I’ll go for a run in the park’.

Personally every Sunday before the week begins I plan out my week on a whiteboard I have divided up into the seven days of the week. I put in all events I have that weel e.g: matches, training. family events etc. and then I fit in my own workouts or other things I want to do that week. When it comes to planning studying for my Leaving Cert I’ll write down what subjects I’ll study everyday and even what I will study in that study session. By breaking my week down like this it makes it so much easier to work becasue instead of just having a big picture I’m aiming for, I have a day by day plan that allows me to chip away daily at my goals.

3. Search for your true motivation:

You’ll never achieve anything in life if you don’t have a real ‘why’ that keep the fire to work burning inside you when the going get tough. Sometimes just saying ‘because I want to lose weight’ might not be enough to keep that fire going. This one requires a bit of soul searching and maybe even facing some ugly truths about yourself and what others say or think about you.

Let me give you a personal example. I love basketball and I put a lot of work into being the best player I can be. I have a goal of making the Superleague and play basketball at the highest level in Ireland. Thats the goal on the surface, thats the answer I give people 90% of the time when I get asked why I do the stuff that I do. But deep down what really makes me work so hard and work to make the Superleague is because I want show the kids that I train and that I’m a role model to that it can be done and you can make it to the top, but you’ve got to work hard. My motivation is not really for myself anymore, its to motivate others. Thats my true ‘why’, and by finding yours working to achieve your goals becomes a hell of a lot easier because you have a true fire going inside you now.

4. Find yourself running mates:

Some days when its dark outside or its raining or your tired its very easy to just not get up and put in the work. Its in these moments you need what Patrick Bet-David of Valuetainment calls ‘running mates’. These are people in your life who may have a similar goal to you and by working together they’ll hold you accountable and honest with your work ethic. For some people it may be a teacher, a personal trainer, a friend or a family member. These ‘running mates’ are the ones who will pick you up when you need it and likewise you’lldo the same for them.

‘It takes a village to raise a kid’, its very hard achieve anything in life by yourself because as it goes ‘ a problem shared is a problem halved’. Find the right people who’ll push you to work to achieve your goals. They’ll be invaluable in the long run.

5. Don’t be afraid to f*ck up:

As Kobe Bryant said ‘if your afraid to fail, your probably going to fail.’

Your going to hit road blocks along the road. There’ll be days you don’t get up, don’t study, drink a bit too much or eat like crap. Its going to happen. There will be days or even weeks where you lose all motivation and just want to give up. There will be times where you feel like you’ve completely failed. And thats okay.

A young Kobe Bryant airballed the NBA finals game winning shot three times in one game. He was torn apart by the media and I’m sure he felt like crap. But he didn’t give up.

Instead he became a five time NBA champion, hitting so many game winners there were just like normal baskets to him.

As Bugzy Malone said ‘progress is irreversible’. Take the good with the bad, but if you have a solid plan, a deep motivation and people to push you when the going gets hard I know you’ll achieve whatever your goals are for this year.

Some other guides to help you with achieving your goals: