“A man who does not plan long ahead will find trouble at his door.” – Confucius,a Chinese philosopher
Last week, I discussed the importance of setting goals. This week, I am going to
show you how to reach your goals.
As important as it is to set goals, without the appropriate planning on how to reach
those goals, you will never get started but even if you start, you will end up frustrated. Planning is crucial to achieving your goals because it precedes all other actions. When you have planned how to achieve your goals it means you have thought the whole process through. Planning is the foundation upon which all your other actions will proceed. Your plan gives you a vantage point and helps you to see the main steps you need to take to achieve your goals. At the same time, it reveals the obstacles you have to overcome along the way. Planning is the key to effective management. It is also a powerful control mechanism.
So having written your S.M.A.R.T goals, the next thing is to list the steps you have
to take every day to accomplish these goals. Your list has to be S.M.A.R.T compliant. For that to happen, you need to do some research. Let’s continue with your goal to lose twenty pounds in six months. If you assume that the only way to achieve that goal is to go to the gym, you may not succeed with that goal. But when you invest time to research how to lose twenty pounds in six months, you will be surprised by the information you will gather to help you reach your goal. So the first item on your plan is to research how to lose weight. This shouldn’t take more than a day. Armed with the result from your research, you can now draw up the remainder of your S.M.A.R.T plan from Month to month, week to week, and day to day. Everything in your plan must be necessary if you must reach your goal to lose twenty pounds in six months. Your SMART goals aren’t smart unless they are written down.
Month One: Research on how to lose weight. Lose three pounds, work out for fifteen days, and reduce calorie intake by twenty-five percent. In other to manage the process, you decide to lose one pound a week. It doesn’t stop there you break it further down to your daily activities. Every day, you can plan to work out for one hour but because you are not used to working out, you can start working out for an hour every other day for the first three weeks. You can then increase it to five days a week by the second month. From your research, you know that working out alone may not be enough to reach your goal. You decide to reduce your calorie intake. If you used to take in three thousand calories a day, that is a total of ninety thousand calories in thirty days. That’s a lot. So you can plan to reduce it to two thousand a day. This brings it down to sixty thousand a month. It doesn’t look unrealistic. But to achieve this, you need to modify your eating habits to include more vegetables, fruits, drinking more water and less alcohol or soft drinks. This is where you state how much vegetables, fruits, nuts, grains, and water you need to take every day and at what intervals. If you ate a lot of burgers, pizzas, rice, or too many starchy foods, your new eating habit will replace some of the unhealthy habits. With planning, you can see the part you need to take in other to achieve your goal. The goal no matter how challenging becomes more manageable with a good plan. Planning gives you the tools to take control and manage your goal efficiently. Three months into your goal, and you have lost ten pounds, there will be no stopping you because your efforts are paying off and success begets success.
Your daily activities may be little steps yet, they are powerful. They keep you focused on the big picture and accrue ripple effects that are beneficial to your life generally. All thanks to your planning. Working on your goals daily, make you a more disciplined person. Inevitably, this will spill over to other aspects of your life not directly linked to weight loss. Remember, “Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.” – Alan Lakein and “A clear vision, backed by definite plans, gives you a tremendous feeling of confidence and personal power.” – Brian Tracy.
Good luck on your success journey. Your comments and feedback are always appreciated.