(Banner image Designed by Freepik)

There are shockingly 8 reasons why most people never achieve their goals. And all of these are taken out of a book I am reading which has a comprehensive outline of Aristotle’s work. The answer is quite simple, habits! Consistent good habits allow us to achieve our goals. “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit”. I just thought, writing a blog will result in helping a lot of people to be on their guard. Here are some to-do things, which are not done by 92% of the people who don’t achieve their goals.

1. Begin with the end in mind: I think a lot of people set wrong goals for themselves. When you are thinking of setting a goal, use the ‘As-If-Now’ frame to think, what would my life be like once I have achieved this. Make sure you not only imagine your life but live it in your head. Your imagination should consist of visuals, sounds, feelings and make it as real as possible. If that experience really excites you, you have the right goal for yourself in your mind. The next step is, starting from the point of having achieved your goal in future, work backward to find out what you need to do each day to succeed. 
2. There are good habits, and there are bad habits: Consistent good habits help us achieve our goals. To achieve our goals, we need our actions to align with them. Imagine you wanting to reduce your weight by 15-20 kilos, but your actions don’t support this goal. Obviously, if you order a pizza the same evening, there is no alignment. Most people have habits which are counterproductive to the goal set. Make sure you get rid of them right away, the cold turkey way. And embrace the habits which would push you in a haste towards your goal.
3. Start Small: Do not try to achieve your goals in one step. Make the first steps as small as possible. For example, walk two miles instead of 7 right on the first day. Aim to read 5 pages of a book per day for the first week when you are trying to build a habit of reading. This is how you pace and lead yourself towards achieving a bigger goal.
4. Priming the environment: So, you set some goals and you need to start working towards achieving them. But a wrong environment can easily jeopardize the endeavor. If you want to write a book, make sure you set up a writing area. If you want to exercise at home, do it in a sufficiently good space with privacy and no distractions. Most people get disconnected with their goals because of distractions and the right environment can help keeping these distractions at bay.
5. Reduce Friction: Choose goals and habits that align with all areas of your life, without hurting the ‘ecology’. For example, imagine you have a goal of shifting abroad and settling there. It is a legitimate goal. But if you can just imagine how your life will be when you’ve achieved that goal, how do you see your life? Some people might just realize they would be away from their friends or relatives or parents and if these people are an important part of the ecology, you might just tweak your plans. I have been coaching people for a long time now. I’ve seen a lot of my clients changing, tweaking, modifying their goals once I compel them to see this picture of their future. As far as possible, before even you start working on your goals, do a little bit of an ecology check. Make sure other areas of life are not affected adversely.
6. Using the When-Then Hack: So, once you have finalized your goal, make sure you set up the roadmap to achieve the goal by setting milestones on the timeline. And I know, one of the reasons why people fail to achieve their goals is because of laziness to achieve the milestones within the required time frame. Sometimes we procrastinate as well. This is where, you can use the When-Then Hack! It simply means tying the work to be done to a specific activity or time. For example, “When I wake up, I will take the dog for a walk”. “When I go to bed at night, I will meditate for 10 min”. Associate the important tasks with what you do regularly.
7. Reward yourself: Have a cheat meal on Sunday when you’ve run each day this week. When you’ve read a book each day, watch a movie on the weekend. When we reward the behavior, we’re more likely to maintain a commitment to the behavior. 
8. Track your progress: Usually when I have a clear roadmap of achieving my goal, I write down the roadmap, including the milestones on a chart paper and stick it up on the wall. Whenever I achieve any milestone, I tick on the chart paper and then reward myself. Writing a journal also helps. You can also have an Accountability Partner for yourself, to whom you report everything related to your progress. The Accountability Partner is like an external agency which is monitoring your progress and you are compelled to be serious about your tasks while reporting to that person.