A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

-- Lao Tzu

What is your current goal setting process? What is your overall life mission? What are you doing today to make this mission come to fruition?

These questions might be hard to answer now. However, they are essential to achieving your mission. Without focus and direction, you will never live the life of your dreams. Having the courage to answer these questions will give you the direction to succeed. Learn to set goals with your action plans to draw closer to your bigger goals.

If your ultimate goal is to become a millionaire, set measurable goals to move forward and hold yourself accountable. If you want to start a nonprofit, start by figuring out all the steps you need to start one. If you want to land a $100K per year job, figure out what jobs pay $100K then figure out the steps to fit the job requirements.

The long and short of it is you need to learn how to set goals to achieve your goals. You can't simply want something and it just appears out of thin air. You need to use goal-setting to figure out the steps to making your big goals happen. There is a lot of hard work between setting a goal and making it happen. Understanding the formula to create your goals will help you accomplish them.

In this guide, we will break down the actionable hacks to achieve your life goals:

7 Rules of Goal Setting

1. Write Down Your Goals

According to Harvard Business School, people who write down their goals make 10X more money than their classmates. Writing down a goal helps you visualize yourself accomplishing it. Here are some tips for writing your goals:

• Choose words that are assertive and gives you "power"
• Write down goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART goals)
• For your daily goals, choose something right outside your comfort zone, but not so far beyond it brings up fear and anxiety. These are called reach goals

Put these goals in highly visible locations. You need to visually see constant reminders to have personal accountability. Find accountability partners who will help you foster a positive mindset.

2. Choose Goals that Get You Excited

Excitement brings energy. Energy brings a sense of purpose. It helps you reach your goals in life. Your goal should be important to you. It should not be something your someone else told you to want.

A sense of purpose helps you continue when things get hard. It helps you stay motivated during difficult periods. It will give you a sense of urgency. It will motivate you to care about achieving the final outcome.

3. Set Big Goals, But Start Small

Big goals are extremely powerful and exciting. They will help you reach for bigger and better things. But when you are starting out, they can seem extremely daunting. Some big goals are so grand they might cause you anxiety when you think about it. Anxiety and fear will cause you to lose motivation for chasing your goal.

The key here is to break the big goal into a series of smaller goals. For example, if you are going to write a novel in a year, start by just writing for 15 minutes a day. Then, continue to increase the writing time by 5 minutes every week. Soon, you will have enough confidence and momentum to be writing for hours a single day. This will then help you achieve any goal, no matter how big or small.

4. Be Clear on What the "Successful" Outcome Looks Like

Having a clear idea of what success looks like is a major component of achieving your goals. The types of goals that get met are the goals that are clear. If your goal is to run a marathon between 2 to 5 hours, there is a massive gulf of difference. Even if you ran the race in 5 hours, it's definitely not the same as running it in 2 hours!

The more specific you can be with your goals will increase your chances of success. Once you have clarity, you can determine what steps are necessary in order to make them happen.

5. Create Your Action Plans

Laying out the steps is as important to the outcome as setting the initial goal. Most people get caught up in the outcome. Most people forget to set up execution steps to stick to your goals.

By writing out the individual steps, you can cross each off as you get through them. Goal achievement is the process of getting all the goals complete.

6. Track Your Progress Over Time

What you measure is what gets done. Use your action plan to track the progress towards your ultimate goal. If your journey is 10,000 steps a day, track your progress with every step you take.

As you start on our journey, you will eventually see results. Results give you confidence that you are doing the right thing. It helps you believe that success is achievable. It allows you to reward yourself along the way.

7. Commit and Stay Consistent

The biggest roadblock with accomplishing your goal is learning how to stick to your goals. It's like wanting to lose weight but continuing to eat poorly every day. It's counterintuitive. The reason why a lot of people fail.

With anything you want to achieve in life, you must commit to it. You must take the proper steps to make it work. If you don't take the proper action, you will continue to fail. Break the pattern by creating the plan, and sticking to it. Stop giving up on yourself. Commit and make your goals become a reality.

Final Words

Setting goals and achieving them requires practice. It's a skill that you can develop over time. It might be hard to start. But once you've built up confidence from your previous success, you can momentum shift it into future successes. Start being a person you can be proud of. Hold yourself accountable for your success. Stop wasting time and start doing more. You can live a spectacular life once you start putting your plans into action.