Pebblepup's Writing Den

Goals are things to reach for, targets to hit. They should not be whips to prod or punish you. All too often people set their goals and never achieve them. Setting goals is easy. Achieving them is another story. So I have some tips that work for me. Maybe one or two of them will work for you.

First of all, when you set a goal you should make it reasonable. Don’t set a goal to be a multimillionaire by the end of the year. Unless you are lucky enough to win the lottery, that won’t happen. Make your goals easier to obtain. Then give yourself a reasonable amount of time to achieve the goal. You’ll have a better chance of reaching it.

Be specific. Instead of saying “I want to lose twenty pounds”, give a time frame. Make sure it’s reasonable. I want to lose twenty pounds by Tuesday” is not achievable. Not in any lasting fashion, anyway. A more achievable goal would be, “I want to lose twenty pounds by the end of the year.” That’s more achievable. That is, you are more likely to reach that goal. If you want a more immediate goal to encourage yourself, then you say, “I want to lose two pound by this time next week.” That’s achievable.

That leads to my next tip, break your goals into incremental goals. They can encourage you to keep going. This is useful for goals such as losing weight. In NaNoWriMo, we have the main goal of fifty thousand words in thirty days. That seems overwhelming so we break it down to sixteen hundred sixty-seven words per day. If you can reach that, you’ll get the fifty thousand in thirty days.

Breaking a goal down into steps will help you achieve the goal. Your first step is to define what your steps are. Then all you have to do is do the steps.

Another tip is to reward yourself. “If I do x, I can have y.” It seems simple and it is. However, it can incite you to get through the steps you need to reach your goal.

We’ve all heard the metaphor the donkey and the carrot. The carrot dangles before the donkey who moves toward it. This is the reward system. It works well in that you get what you ultimately want with a few rewards to keep you going, like the donkey going after that carrot.

What you need to do when you set a goal is to make sure it’s something you can reasonably achieve, break it down into steps. Then just do the steps. Reward yourself along the way.

That is how you successfully reach your goals. If you can do this, you will be successful in reaching your goal, whatever it may be. It takes a little work, but it works every time. If you want something bad enough, you can reach your goals if you take it step by step and reward yourself for completing each step.