How can you achieve your goals through three simple actions?

Changing your life, daring to put yourself forward, improving your work environment. Who would say no to a better life? Who wouldn’t want to have more time and more resources? Who wouldn’t want to dedicate themselves to the thing they really love doing?

In reality, change is scary. Particularly when the objective you’re aiming for is so far away from your everyday existence that it seems impossible to reach.

It’s very difficult to achieve your goals overnight, but you can gradually move closer to your objective day by day, one step at a time, by taking these three simple actions each week. Don’t you think this sounds like a much easier way to do it?

Here’s a bit of practical advice you can put to use immediately.

Start From The End

Identify the point in time by which you want to reach your goals. Be realistic: if you’re not doing any physical exercise at all right now, it’s going to be hard to transform yourself into a professional marathon runner in just two months.

As an example, you could think about what differences you would like to see in your life one year from today. You can also consider longer periods, of course.

Now, move backwards through time towards the present. What are the steps you’ll need to take to get what you want? What will you have to do to reach your goal? To achieve it in one year, what will you need to have done in nine months’ time? How about six? Three? One month from now?

If your goals are very ambitious and you think achieving them will take too much time (30 years, for example), don’t just let them go. Instead, ask yourself how you can move closer to them, year after year. Transform your goals into lots of smaller objectives that will gradually make up the full picture.

Identify 30-Minute-Long, Concrete Actions

Come up with three concrete actions, each around 30 minutes in length, that you can take over the next week.

They have to be specific, measurable and verifiable. Don’t just say, ‘I want to learn something new about online marketing’, ‘I want to earn more,’ ‘I want to be in better shape,’ etc.

Be specific in the actions you identify, so that anyone reading them would understand what needs to be done.

For example, if your goal is to promote one of your products online, the actions you’ll need to take might be:

1. Find at least three informational sites on the theme of online promotion, and sign up for their newsletters;
2. Read at least three articles from these sites;
3. Put at least one of their recommended strategies into practice.

If one or more of these actions requires a lot of time, set yourself the goal of spending AT LEAST half an hour on it over the entire week. You can spend half an hour on it this week and then another half an hour the following week.

If the actions you identify are too big or too demanding, you’ll end up procrastinating and not doing anything at all. And that’s not what you want, right? So, keep things simple to make sure you succeed.

Reward Yourself

The two main instincts that drive every human being are: avoiding pain and experiencing pleasure. The more pleasure something gives you, the more your brain wants it and motivates you to obtain it. The more pain something causes you, the less you’ll be inclined to want it.

Would you rather do something pleasant or something you dislike? The answer seems pretty obvious. So how can you make yourself do something that on the surface you don’t like doing? Simple: make it enjoyable!

Here’s how: at the beginning of each week, identify a reward that you’ll only be able to collect once you’ve finished all three of your actions for the week.

It could be something you enjoy but no longer allow yourself to do, or something you’ve wanted to do for a long time but never yet felt you deserved. Here are a few examples:

– Eating your favourite meal
– Going to see a good film at the cinema
– Going out for dinner with your partner
– Taking a trip somewhere
– Buying that sweater you’ve been wanting for so long
– Getting a manicure
– Having at least an hour of ‘me time’
– Reading a good book
– Meeting up with someone you haven’t seen for ages

You can choose whatever you want, as long you enjoy it and find it satisfying. Ideally, it’ll be something you don’t have the chance to do very often so that you really appreciate it and feel as though you’re rewarding yourself.

At the end of the week, check on your progress. Have you completed all three of the tasks you identified? Great! Now collect your reward. Isn’t it nice to be able to enjoy life a little? This will keep you motivated to achieve future weeks’ actions!

If, on the other hand, you haven’t managed to complete all three actions, or you’ve only been able to do so partially, ask yourself how you can improve for the coming week. Remember that when you’ve finished these tasks you’ll finally be able to savour your reward!

That’s How You Achieve Your Goals

Identify your reward and the three actions you’ll take over the coming week. Then take them. Within a month, you’ll have completed 12 new tasks. Within 6 months, 72. In a year, you’ll have taken 144.

Imagine just how much you can change your life, with three simple actions!

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