10 Tips for Successfully Setting Goals And Achieving Them

We can all set New Year’s resolutions or a big ambitious goal for our lives. But sticking to a goal for the long run and actually achieving a goal? That’s a different story entirely!

So what is the secret to setting goals and achieving them? How do people overcome the setbacks and challenges that they encounter along the way?

As a life and career coach, I spend a lot of time helping people find the motivation to set and achieve the goals that they have for their lives. I am excited to share my top 10 tips for setting goals and achieving them! 

What is Goal Setting?

Goal setting is the process of identifying specific objectives or targets that you want to achieve within a specific period of time. Effective goal-setting involves establishing clear goals that can be measured and achieved.

Goal setting is more than just setting New Year’s resolutions that only last for a few days or weeks. Goals are much different from the regular attempts that you make to improve your life on a daily basis. For example, we all think things like “I want to eat healthier” or “I want to get more sleep”.

But since these ambitions have no plan or defined purpose behind them, they aren’t ready to be considered goals quite yet.

In my life coaching experience, I work with people to create roadmaps that they can use to guide their actions and efforts toward their desired outcomes. This is the best way to transform something you would like to do into a full fledged goal that you can set and crush!

Goal setting is also a very personal exercise. The life goals that you have for yourself will depend on your unique values, experiences, and interests.

But it isn’t always easy to sit down and pick out the types of goals you want to set for yourself. If you are looking for inspiration, check out our list of dreams and goals examples!

Why is Goal Setting Important?

Goal setting is important because it helps you plan out the specific steps and specific actions that you need to take in order to make the most of your life.

When you set new goals for yourself, you provide yourself with direction, motivation, and a sense of purpose in your life. Goal setting also provides you with a sense of control of your life. When you have clear goals set for yourself, it is easier to make decisions that will take you toward the end result that you desire.

Scientific research and goal-setting theory tell us that setting difficult goals tends to motivate us to want to achieve them more than setting easier goals. It also explains that investing yourself on an emotional level makes it easier to commit your thoughts and behaviors to achieving your goals.

Goal setting is also a great way to develop a sense of accountability to yourself. Learning to practice self-discipline in the face of challenges and external factors will help you find growth in your personal life and professional life.

10 Goal-Setting Tips For Setting Goals and Achieving Them

There is no right way or wrong way to choose your life goals. However, I want to share 10 effective goal setting tips that I have found give people the best chance to achieve their ultimate goal.

1. Set SMART Goals

The first step when setting goals is to make sure that your goals are SMART goals.

SMART goal setting means setting goals that are:

• Specific
• Measurable 
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Time bound

When setting SMART goals, they should be specific goals that you can summarize in specific terms. Measurable goals are goals with target dates so that you will know whether you are progressing toward reaching them. You should also set realistic goals and attainable goals that you can actually achieve in a specific time frame.

For example, imagine that you have set a goal to “eat healthier”. A SMART version of this goal might sound like “I will eat salad at least once per day for the next 6 months.”

Being specific and giving yourself a time frame will help you know whether you are on track as you work toward this goal achievement.

2. Identify Your Motivation

If you want to be successful with setting goals and achieving them, it isn’t enough for a goal to just be SMART. It is a good idea for goals to also have a meaningful motivation attached to them that aligns with your personal values.

This is important because it gives you a personal connection to your goals.

Finding your core values can be tricky. Our culture tells us that having lots of money and new things is important. We want what we see on TV and social media because others have it and we think that it will somehow give our lives a sense of meaning and purpose.

With all these confusing messages going around, how are we supposed to find meaningful motivation to reach our goals?

Spend some time giving careful consideration to your core values. Turn off the TV, put down your phone, and listen to your heart. Focusing inward on the people and experiences in your life that are important to you will give you a better understanding of the big picture and what actually motivates you.

For example, one of my personal goals that I always hold myself to is staying in shape. However, I don’t feel a sense of urgency to necessarily look my best. Instead, my goal is to feel my best.

My motivation is to stay in shape so that I have more energy to play with my kids while they are young. Shifting my focus to why I set this personal goal makes me more motivated to work towards it!

3. Write Down Your Goals

When you are working at setting goals and achieving them, the best thing you can do is write your goals down. It might sound silly, but being intentional about the physical act of putting your goals onto paper (or even the bathroom mirror) gives you a boost of motivation to make them happen. 

Consider starting a journal and use journaling prompts to direct your thoughts toward your big goals.

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We love using these simple lined journal notebooks to spend a little bit of time every day intentionally thinking about our own goals!

Another effective way that you can make your goals visible is by writing them on a vision board. Hang your vision board in a high traffic area so that you are constantly reminded of the particular goal you are working toward. 

4. Form an Action Plan

One of the most important factors that will decide whether you are successful in reaching your goals is your action plan. 

It’s easy to dream about what you want for your life, but the reality is a goal without a plan is just a wish. You will have a much better chance of reaching your goal if you have a clear vision for how you plan on getting to where you want to be.

A vision map is an effective way to build a timeline that breaks your big goals up into manageable steps. Vision maps make it clear exactly where you are in your life right now so that you can understand the specific steps you need to take to get where you want to be. 

A vision map should also contain the challenges you might expect to encounter along the way and the supports that you have to help you.

Setting milestones that you will reach along your journey will give you a sense of direction as you take smaller steps toward your bigger goals.

5. Take Action 

Taking action can be one of the most challenging parts of setting goals and achieving them.

In my experience as a life coach, I have learned that many people are afraid to start pursuing their goals because of the fear of failure. Many people also allow their limiting beliefs to hold them back from going after the life they want to live.

Take some time to wrestle with your limiting beliefs. What are the first things that come to mind when you think about reaching your goals? If they are excuses that tell you why you can’t do it, you have found yourself a limiting belief!

6. Hold Yourself Accountable

Okay, so you’ve got started working toward your specific goals. The next steps are where it gets really tricky because you are going to encounter many distractions and obstacles along the way.

Have you ever noticed that it is easy to hold yourself accountable to a small thing like brushing your teeth every day? So why is that we struggle to set and achieve our biggest and most challenging goals for our lives? 

Well, the answer to that question is that brushing your teeth is a habit that is part of an easy to follow pattern. In general, each important step of your daily routine is repeated every day. You get used to your routines and the normalcy is motivating enough for you to keep doing them.

The trick is to make your progress toward your goals a regular habit. Make it so ingrained in what you do that it becomes part of your daily routine, just like brushing your teeth!

The good news is there are so many ways that you can hold yourself accountable to your goals.

In our house, we use our own printable habit trackers and challenges to turn each goal that we set into a new habit. There is something so satisfying about checking off a box every time you stick to your goals!

7. Celebrate Little Victories

Earlier in your planning stage you set milestones to mark your progress. Make sure you take time to celebrate each and every little victory you have. Even small wins mean that you are making progress!

8. Learn from Failure

One of the realities of working toward goals is failing. If you are working toward a big important thing, the chances are you are going to hit a few setbacks along the way.

But part of learning to successfully reach your goals is learning to learn from failure.

Every failure, obstacle, or setback that you encounter has the power to teach you something about how you can improve. Rather than letting your setbacks defeat you, take some time to learn from your failures. Practice developing a growth mindset so that you can find the learning opportunities in your struggles.

9. Reflect and Adjust

With every setback and victory of the goal-setting process it is important to take time to reflect on your experience. 

Look back at how far you have come and the positive changes you have experienced so far! Reflecting is an important part of staying motivated by your own progress.

At the same time, if you are finding yourself continuously falling off track, you may need to adjust your goals. This doesn’t mean that you have to make your goals easier. Instead, it just means you might want to extend your original time frame to accommodate any unexpected events along the way.

Being flexible and compassionate with yourself are important factors that will help you succeed!

10. Think About What’s Next!

What’s next after you cross the finish line?

Goal setting is a lifelong personal growth journey that is meant to enrich your life in a positive way. Once you reach a major goal, take some time to celebrate and enjoy your success.

But don’t get too comfortable!

Use your success as motivation to look at where you are going next. Ask yourself important questions that challenge you to think about how this end result fits in with the bigger picture of your life. What new skills can you learn that will keep you learning and growing?

Using goal setting to work toward your own constant growth will help make sure your life stays rewarding and fulfilling.

What Goals Will You Set and Achieve?

I hope you find these 10 tips for setting goals and achieving them helpful as you start your own goal setting journey. Whether you are setting your own personal goals, professional goals, career goals, or life goals, I truly believe that these tips will help you set yourself up for success.

Many people who set goals for the first time expect to simply declare a goal and reach it. And after giving up, it is common to blame the goal for being too difficult. 

Remember that the most important factor in whether you succeed or not has little to do with how challenging your goal is. Instead, your success depends on how much time and energy you spend setting yourself up for success.

If your goals aren’t SMART or connected to your own personal values, the chances are you will give up on them rather quickly.

And if you don’t have an action plan for holding yourself accountable, you will find yourself struggling to overcome the setbacks that you encounter while working toward your long-term goals.

Remember that reaching your goals isn’t about taking short cuts or finding the easy way. Instead, the goal setting process is about mapping your journey from start to finish and appreciating the growth that you experience along the way.

Don’t forget to share this post with your friends and family on social media! Setting goals and achieving them is easier when we work together and hold each other accountable!

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