How to Achieve Your Desires With a Goal Achievement System - Part 2,
Part One of this blog post gave you a process by which to design your specific goal achievement system. But now that you have some details, it's time to put it all into practice. What will follow is an overview of how someone might break down their particular system into actionable steps and then implement these goals.
The goal achievement system as outlined in Part One has many corresponding systems that can be used in tandem with it, so remember to also incorporate exercise, healthy eating, and positive thinking practices into your life as well as the success of your goal attainment endeavor.
Editor's note: I like this sentence: "Successfully completing your dream is only the beginning. Once you attain an achievement, you have a choice to either (1) set another goal and start the complex process over again, or (2) bask in the glory knowing that you have great life skills and do not need additional goals to stay happy in life."
It's so easy to get caught up in the "one more goal" mentality. As long as we're functioning at anything less than five-star human being level all of the time, there's always a new standard by which we can become better.
The key is using your goals as a means of growing into the person you want to be - and then learning how to sustain that way of being. After all, progress equals happiness.
Habits
Identify your primary habits. Write them down. If you have more than one, choose one to work on the rest of the time you implement this system. For example, if you want to be more creative, then only work on that habit for a portion of each day.
As you work through each of your identified habits, ask yourself what happens when you do it. Is there a common theme? What is the consequence to taking action or not taking action? You may want to write this down or even diagram it.
Identify any weak links in your habit network. These are the points at which you fail to follow through on the habit, or the things that give you trouble when you are trying to perform a habit. Make note of them and address them later by using more discipline or employing more creativity in how you do this task (see section 6).
Be honest with yourself as you analyze these answers. When someone asks, "How's that new job going?" have the courage to tell them what's really going on. Sometimes we can fool ourselves into believing that things are going great when, in truth, they really aren't.
Change
Create a change timeline for the new habit you have chosen.
As soon as you wake up in the morning, write down what you need to do to bring your habit into being. If it takes 10-15 minutes every day, then write that down as well. You should adjust this timeline as needed over time to accommodate changes in your lifestyle or schedule.
Implementing a new habit is difficult because it doesn't come naturally. This will make it more difficult to follow through on this new behavior until it becomes more of a natural action than an unnatural one (see section 1).
If you're not currently doing this, I recommend setting aside a half hour to an hour at least twice a day for a period of two weeks. The goal here is to allow yourself the time each day to do something that will help you start taking charge of your life.
If you have trouble getting started with new habits, try making it an activity that takes place in an environment where it's completely crowded out (such as at work). As long as everything in your environment is busy or chaotic, you won't be able to focus on the present moment and fully attend to what's happening around you.
Your goal here should be to practice focusing your attention until it becomes second nature. Remember, it's crucial that you learn how to be successful with this habit while also engaged in other activities like eating dinner or working on your computer, since those are the situations in which you will first use this new habit.
Set a follow-up date two weeks from when you began this habit. At that time, assess whether or not the habit is still in line with your goals or if something needs to change. For example, maybe writing for 30 minutes twice a day will work better than 60 minutes once per day.
Decide how much you're going to reward yourself for having successfully done this new habit for 2 weeks straight. You can adjust this reward as needed over time as well. For example, if the reward for writing for 30 minutes twice a day is that you can get one hour of work done after 2 weeks, then you want to do that and stop at 2 weeks.
Sustaining
Once that new habit is a part of your life, it's important to recognize what this means when it comes to sustaining your success.
First, acknowledge that you are now taking total responsibility for making changes in your life. It's not going to be easy to follow through on everything you've set out to do. But you can't give up after the first bump in the road.
Second, pick a way to measure whether or not you are sustaining the habit in line with your original plan. One of my favorite ways to do this is by measuring how many times, throughout a week, I'm able to do something new than I did before I implemented this plan. In other words, if you're making it through a week and now can write every day and every time you do it, then that should be good enough for now.
Third, establish a plan for how long you will sustain the habit at this level of success - let's say 4 weeks. At that point, you can either make a new change to this habit or choose to continue on as is while adding another habit.
Don't rely on willpower alone. If you can, find ways to make this habit part of your daily life (like an alarm clock), set reminders for yourself throughout the day, and ask other people to hold you accountable for following through with your plan.
Set a reminder in your calendar for every seven days. At that time, review whether or not you have been successful with this habit and whether or not it has maintained itself without much effort on your part during the last week.
If it is not working well enough, then revisit steps three and five to adapt accordingly.
Bottom line
This is a long process, but it's not nearly as hard as most people think. You may have some setbacks along the way. But if you persist with this system and are patient, eventually you will see your life change around you and your perspective on life change as well.
I wish you the best of luck following through with this system!
1. Benson, R. (1996). The Mindfulness Bell Handbook: A Guide to Developing the Sound Body, Sound Mind (2nd Ed.). New York: Fireside Books.
2. Benson, R., & Saper, C. (2004). Life Regained: Rewiring Your Brain for Maximum Focusing Power .
Conclusion
The second part of this book is up next where I will be showing you how to apply the tools to achieve success with all of the other habits that I've discussed. I'm certain that your time spent reading this book thus far has directly affected how effective your habits are and how much life you get out of them.
To recap my message, if you want more out of life, then you need to become more disciplined in the way that you do all tasks. Also, variety is important, so don't get stuck on just one habit; try and keep things interesting by adding new habits every now and then.
I also want to bring awareness to what's in our heads as it relates to willpower.