4 Ways to Set Goals You’ll Actually Achieve

#goals. Something often talked about but rarely executed. People always say to “set goals” but what does that actually mean? What kind of goals should we be setting? And what steps do we need to take to reach them? Well, that’s what today’s post is all about…

In the past 6 months I’ve gotten really frugal with my time and to-do list. I’ve actually been able to create more time by sticking to a strict calendar schedule which meant getting super specific with exactly what I needed to be doing and when. I’m slowly reaching my goals for the year one by one so I can tell you this strategy works.

Here are the 4 things I did to make it all happen…

#1 create goals based on your current situation

Everyone is at a different stage in their life and business. Let’s say you’re making $40,000 a year from your blog. A goal of making $1,000,000 in the next year is pretty far fetched. That’s not to say you shouldn’t dream big, but dream big within a reasonable time frame, ya know?

Because your current financial situation is $40K a year, an achievable goal that’s more aligned with your circumstances would be something like $60-75K a year. That’s like a 40% increase which is still amazing!

Then the next year you can set a goal for another 40% increase, and another, and another until you’ve hit your $1M mark. The more you’re making or the further along you are in your business, the higher you can set your goal.

Another example would be starting a blog with a goal to be blogging full-time within 1 year. Again, this is an unlikely scenario. Let’s say a year comes and goes and you’re not blogging full-time. Not only will you feel defeated, but you’ll be completely unmotivated to keep pushing forward. I mean, what’s the point? You tried and you failed, right? Wrong.

In order to actually achieve your goals and dreams you have to create a conducive environment for success. You want to set goals based on your current situation because you’ll be more likely to reach them and when you do, it’s a win.

Endorphins will release into your body and psychologically you’ll feel unstoppable. But the first step is to set yourself up for that to happen by assessing where you are and where you can realistically be within a certain period of time.

#2 have a vision board

A vision board is a physical board filled with images, words, quotes, places, people, and things that inspire you or that are a direct reflection of your goals (for more on vision boards CLICK HERE).

The reason vision boards are so effective is because you’re able to see your goals/dreams every day. (Obviously this only works when you put your board in a place you frequently visit.)

For example, my vision board is above my desk. I’m in my office every single day so that’s the best spot for me. Every time I look up from my computer I’m reminded of what I’m working towards. This is especially helpful on the days where I’m just not feelin’ it.

Looking at your goals in the physical sense helps to elicit the feeling you’ll have when you’ve achieved them.

Let’s say you have a big beautiful house in Italy on your vision board. Every time you see that picture you’re imagining the life that would come with it. Maybe you visualize yourself walking through the vineyards in the backyard or your car pulling up the cobblestone driveway. You want to experience the feeling of already having it. The power of visualization is just that: power.

#3 get specific

It’s not enough to just set an arbitrary goal and hope you achieve it. You have to take steps every day that get you closer to your goal and the only way to do that is by setting goals that are specific.

“Gain more Instagram followers” is great in theory, however it isn’t measurable. How many new followers do you want? And when do you want them – by the end of the week, month, 2 years? Answering these questions will help you set goals that are quantitative.

For example, one of my past goals was to hit 30K on Instagram within 6 months. I didn’t shoot for some insane number like 100K because I knew that wasn’t really realistic… possible, but not likely, so I stuck to a number I was pretty confident that I could achieve. (By the way, I had about 21K followers when I planned for a 30K goal.) Not only was I able to expedite my goal but I surpassed it through giveaways.

If you’ve done the work to set attainable goals (as mentioned in #1) but they’re not specific, you might as well not have any goals at all. When you’re precise with your goals, you’re able to create an action plan of making them come to life which brings me to #4…

#4 work backwards

I’m sure you’ve heard the term before, but “reverse engineer” is something that has changed my life and business drastically. Gary Vaynerchuk is the “founding father” of this idea. I’ve used other techniques of his that have been super successful, but I have to say I struggled for years to figure out what the eff he meant by “reverse engineer”. Finally one day it clicked… it means to work backwards.

When you have realistic, specific goals in place you can now start to execute them by working backwards.

Let’s go back to the Instagram followers example. Since I was at 21K followers when I set off to hit 30K in 6 months, I was able to see that I’d need to attract 9,000 new followers, which I broke down to 1,500 followers a month.

Knowing that, I could have implemented a major social media strategy that *hopefully* would have gotten me to my monthly goal but instead I was able to join a giveaway that gained around 17K new followers in one fell swoop, so I actually reached my goal within a month or so. To be fair, gaining followers on Instagram isn’t really all that hard when you utilize the right tools.

Now let’s talk about a goal that doesn’t have a “shortcut” so to speak, like making $60K a year. If your base salary is at $40K that means you need to make $20K more a year. Broken down by month, that’s an extra $1,700/mo which is an extra $425 a week.

First you’ll have to find out if your business, side hustle, or full-time job can support that, (i.e. can you gain a new client, work overtime, sell something, etc.). If that was my goal, since I’m in a service based business with NAB Media Group, I would need to sell 8-9 media kits a month or 2 a week which is 100% doable.

Pro tip: The more revenue streams you have, the easier it will be to hit your financial goals because you have money coming in from multiple places.

So, through reverse engineering, I was able to take a daunting number like $20K a year and work backwards so it comes out to be just 2 media kit sales a week and you can use the exact same strategy to your own business. Pretty cool, right?

Do you set goals? If so, how do you do it? What’s your method? Share in the comments below for the NAB community to use a resource!