Get to Your Goals Fast: Hope is NOT a Strategy, Take Action!

I’ve done it! Daydreamed about what could be, should be. Then, as if someone had waved a magic wand when I wasn’t looking, I was disappointed when it didn’t happen. What the heck? The hard truth is that taking  ACTUAL action towards what we are hoping for is the only way we make new things happen in our life. Whether it’s creating a new health habit, new relationship, new schedule, or new career, ACTION is the key. You can get to your goals fast: hope is not a strategy, take action!

5 Steps to Get to Your Goals Fast

1. Decide what you want. You can daydream then you can write those daydreams down!  Those CAN be reality if those dreams are really what you want.  Writing them down creates a 75% greater chance of dreams happening then if you just keep thinking about them. UMMMM! YES! 75% greater chance!! Just write them down. Let’s use weight loss, because this is a universal issue.  You daydream about buying a certain size bathing suit.  You even have a picture in your mind or your phone of when you used to wear that size suit.

   

2. Assess what you are doing now that is not in line with what you want. This is called looking at your current reality. You have to come to terms with what you are currently doing that doesn’t line up with what you really want.
   We all know what happens in our life when we REALLY want something.  We move heaven and earth to get it.  Well, this is no different – NO IT ISN’T!!
   You can give yourself a lot of excuses why it IS different.  Frankly, those are the things that have kept you from achieving your goal in the first place.  The birthday parties, the girls nights out, the family. or friends or clients…blah, blah, blah.
   If you were going to be given $10 Million dollars or  told your were dying, you would figure out how to stay on your weight loss plan.  You would no longer have those excuses.

   Listen to what is going on in your head.

   I’m doing that right now, I really want to create a nice acronym for this blog but, it’s not coming together.  This can stop me, but I am choosing to get the blog out to you instead of obsessing about the acronym. Whatever is going on up there, these are the messages that are keeping you stuck in a pattern. Your pattern IS your current reality.

3. What will you accomplish? What is it that you want to do to get where you want to go?  If weight loss is the goal, then you need to plan for grocery shopping, food prep, time to move, time to sleep.  These will be the things that will go on your new schedule…leading us into…
   

   We all need calendars…

4. Schedule it. Put it on your calendar.  If it’s not on the schedule, don’t do it. Do not cave. When the time comes to make healthy meals or take a walk, actions that are in line with what you really want, do not say “yes” to anything else!
   If you are headed out to your best friends wedding when your friend Sara asks you to make cookies for the church bake sale at the last minute, you would say “HECK NO”!! That’s the way you have to treat your goals.
   I learned this from several people, Marie Forleo calls it getting on the “NO train”; Rachel Hollis calls her five hours a week – 5 to Strive – striving for your goals in 5 hours a week is where she suggests you to start. “Being busy” is different than actually producing some work.
   

   Sometimes, things happen, bounce fast…

5. Plan for things to happen that are out of your control.  You get sick, a family member gets sick, your best friend brings over a chocolate cake or a huge bowl of popcorn (that’s my kryptonite!),  something will happen that isn’t in your control.
   First, make sure it really isn’t something you can control.  Someone trying to guilt you into baking those cookies, or worrying about how your friend group will talk about you when you say “no” is not an emergency.  Then, decide how you are going to handle those interruptions.  Last, find an hour some place in your schedule, stay up late one night or get up earlier to make up the time.

Like I said in the opening paragraph, I have certainly struggled with this.  And, as I change my business model, I’ve had to look at my schedule carefully. Then, I had to find time to learn some new skills like creating an online course, and a new lifestyle for myself that offers more freedom.  Time freedom is amazing AND I learned that if I’m not careful with that time, I can waste it by “being busy” but not doing anything productive.  These five steps have come in handy during this time.

It is a journey.  I have to re-assess at least every week, sometimes every day and sometimes on the fly to adjust my thinking and shift my action. What is the ONE ACTION you can take TODAY to move closer to your goal?