How to reach a goal.
This is a big question.
In fact, for those of us who strive to be intentional and serious about setting and reaching goals in our lives, this is actually the biggest question.
I’m a huge proponent of turning your dreams into goals, writing those goals down, and then making a plan to achieve them—thereby creating a roadmap to success that will lead you to the life you desire.
However, just like there’s an art to setting a goal, there’s also an art to reaching one once it’s been set.
And in this post, you’re going to learn my simple seven-step plan for how to reach a goal—no matter how big or small it may be.
- Maybe you want to lose two pounds.
- Maybe you want to start your own business.
- Maybe you want to fix your marriage.
- Maybe you want to make a new friend, adopt a cat, or renovate your house.
Regardless of what your goal is, learning how to reach it once it’s been set is a vital part of the process.
Important Note:
For the purposes of this post, we’re going to assume that you’ve already set the goal.
We’re not necessarily going to go in-depth about how to create goals in this post.
For more information about that, check out this article.
Instead, in this post, we’re going to work from the basis of understanding that you already have a set goal, and that now it’s time to achieve it.
So let’s dive into it.
7 Simple Steps For How To Reach A Goal
1. Make A Plan
Depending on how big or small your goal is, you may need to do some additional planning to break that goal down into smaller more achievable steps.
For example:
Setting a goal to lose 10 pounds in 90 days is a great goal.
However, you also need a plan for how you’re going to accomplish it if you actually want to reach it—so you might make a plan that says something like this:
For the next 90 days, I’m going to stick to a specific daily calorie plan and planned-out exercise routine that will lead to me losing roughly three-quarters of a pound on a weekly basis. This will lead to me accomplishing my goal within the 90-day timeframe.
It’s really that simple.
Once you set your goal, break it down as much as necessary in order to give yourself a solid plan of action that you can work toward every single day.
2. Believe In Your Plan
Do you actually believe that your plan is achievable?
Or are you still in the stage where it feels more like wishful thinking?
See, if you don’t actually believe in your plan, then you’re going to be much less likely to put in the work it’s going to take to accomplish it.
If you want to reach a goal, it’s in your best interest to make that goal believable.
So do whatever it takes to actually believe in your vision.
Write it down on paper, and crunch the numbers to figure out how to make the goal not only achievable, but also believable.
If you need to start by dialing the more ambitious parts of the goal back a little bit, that’s perfectly fine.
For example, instead of setting a goal to make a million dollars in the next two years, if you’re struggling to believe that such an outcome is possible, you may need to dial it back to say: “I’m going to increase my income by 50% over the next six months.”
Regardless of how this process looks, it’s just really important that you believe that it’s achievable.
Note: This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t shoot for the starts. But it does mean that you may need to work your way up to those bigger goals by setting smaller milestone goals that’ll lead you to them.
3. Get Started Today
A lot of people make the mistake of over-planning and under-performing when the time comes to reach a goal.
A lot of people also make the mistake of continuously researching a goal instead of taking action to achieve it.
This is really just another form of procrastination.
Even though research and planning feel like effort, the truth of the matter is that you won’t actually make progress on your goal until you start taking action.
So start taking action today.
- If your goal is to lose 10 pounds, start walking today.
- If your goal is to increase your income by 50% over the next six months, start looking for that side job or start that side hustle today.
The first step is actually the most important one.
A lot of people never reach their goals because they never actually take that first step.
It’s scary to do it. However, you have to build up that momentum if you really want to give yourself your best odds for success.
4. Stay Consistent And Work Hard
This might be the most difficult part of the process.
Sometimes, it’s easy to get hyped up and to get started strong when trying to reach a goal.
However, over time, as the effort starts to feel more like a long-drawn-out affair that feels more normal every single day—well, it can be difficult to stick with it.
But relying on the ‘newness’ and excitement of getting started on a new goal can really cause people to give up when the time comes for that goal to stretch into the long-term.
So stay consistent with it and work hard, even if it starts to become difficult, boring, or ‘normal.’
The truth is that, eventually, working on your goal is probably going to start to feel very routine.
You may even go for long periods of time without really experiencing anything particularly new or exciting.
You may even start to feel tired and ‘burned out.’
But in these moments, it’s crucial to remember that there’s a reason for why you have a plan—so stick with it.
To reach a goal, remember that it’s a marathon—not a sprint.
You tend to get the best results when you put in reasonable, achievable, determined steps on a daily basis over a long period of time.
This works much better than trying to adopt an all-or-nothing, ‘hail mary’ approach in the short term.
5. Remember Why You’re Doing It
When striving to reach a goal, it’s always important to remember why you want to achieve it.
You should visualize yourself at the finish line, and try to keep that vision alive within your heart.
Our goals should always involve an element of service to others.
So keep this in mind too.
Think about how this goal will help your life, but also think about how it’ll help you to make the world a better place.
Thinking about these things can really help you to keep your mind focused on what’s really important.
6. Don’t Give Up
Sometimes, it’ll take more work to reach a goal than you originally planned on.
I had one goal-setting student who got really discouraged when his online business didn’t take off within the first two years.
According to his plan, he was going to be making a certain amount of money in his business within the two-year timeframe. But within that two-year period, his numbers were much, much lower than planned.
But here’s the thing.
Sometimes, you just have to adapt and continue forward.
And even though he was discouraged, he pressed on.
And guess what?
Things really turned around by year three.
The results were later than he planned on, but he ended up seeing huge amounts of progress anyway.
It’s just really important not to give up if you really care about the goal.
Oftentimes, the biggest wins come right after you feel like you’re at your lowest.
If the goal really matters to you, then what have you got to lose by just continuing to try?
If you keep making forward progress and you keep making those small, incremental advancements—you’re bound to reach your goal at some point.
7. Get An Accountability Partner
According to research, getting an accountability partner can drastically increase your odds of success (by as much as 95%).
This could mean joining some kind of accountability group, checking in with a friend, telling your goals to your peer group, hiring a coach, etc.
However you choose to do it, leveraging accountability to help you achieve your goals is massive, and really does make a difference in helping you to achieve what you want to achieve.
FAQs
Why do you need to reach your goal?
Reaching our goals is important.
If you want to live an intentional life, achieve the future of your dreams, and truly give back to the world in a meaningful way, then it’s in your best interest to set specific time-bound goals to help you move forward toward the life you desire.
However, creating the plan is just the first step. In order to reach those goals, it’s also important that we take action so that we can actually manifest the life we want.
What can keep you from reaching your goals?
There are many obstacles that get in our way when we’re trying to achieve goals.
- You may start to lose hope.
- You may get stressed out.
- Naysayers may threaten to discourage you.
- You may run into unforeseen setbacks.
- You may experience financial struggles, equipment failures, medical emergencies, and family drama.
There’s really no end to the list of things that could happen to derail your goals.
But here is the big question.
Are we going to let these challenges overcome us?
Or are we going to persevere despite those challenges?
This is where the real champions are made.
When you treat every challenge like an important lesson in your growth, that’s when you’ll become strongest and greatly increase your odds of actually succeeding at the things you want to succeed at.
How can we reach our goal?
You reach your goals by setting reasonable SMART goals, and then enacting the plan outlined above to begin the process of creating the life you want.
The specific steps to take to reach a goal are:
- Make a plan
- Believe in your plan
- Get started today
- Stay consistent and work hard
- Remember why you’re doing it
- Don’t give up
- Get an accountability partner
It really is that simple.
All that’s left is to get started. Your future self will thank you for your effort.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this post has helped you to understand how to reach a goal once it’s been set and written down.
It really matters. Taking action to reach the goal is the second part of the process. But it’s incredibly important!
Have you started setting your own life goals yet?
There are many different goal setting and goal achievement systems to use—and we’ve written about some of our favorite ones on our resources page.
But of course, at the end of the day, the system that you choose is never as important as just deciding to get starting writing down your goals.
So start turning your dreams into goals, and writing down those goals today.
This is how you begin your journey to success and crush it.
Need some help getting started? Download my weekly goal-setting sheet, print out a few, and give it a try.
You can also sign up for my email list to get my free Goal-Setting Essentials Starter Kit.
You’ve got this. I believe in you.
Now it’s time to get to work and reach a goal!
Best wishes…
Jay O’Donnell