Today’s success tip comes from Andrew May.
After he founded Good Health Solutions, which is now Australia’s largest corporate health and wellbeing consultancy, Andrew continued to work with professional athletes and is now considered one of Australia’s leading experts on performance.
What are your seven steps for successful goal-setting?
1. Ask yourself the right questions - what do you want and why do you want to achieve it? How much does it really mean to you? What are the benefits of achieving the goal? Who will be affected? Are you prepared to do whatever it takes to achieve the goal?
2. Involve significant others - don’t keep your goals to yourself. Enlist the support of your partner, family, friends and colleagues. This keeps you accountable, while at the same time forming a support group to keep you on track.
3. Get anchored - write your goals down on a sheet of paper, simplify them into point form and then display them somewhere you can view them regularly - your diary, office, car, even on the back of the toilet door.
4. Small bites - George Miller, a 1950s psychologist, believed that we can only deal with seven bits of information at any one time. Any more than this and we need to group things into more memorable, manageable chunks. So when you create your master plan for the New Year, keep goals to a manageable number and group similar areas.
5. Set a plan - after you have written down your specific goals, the next step is to work out a specific plan. Identify the key steps you need to take toward accomplishing your goals and assign specific dates for their achievement.
6. Project the future - review your goals at least every seven days (every day is ideal) - and don’t leave it for another year. This helps activate the Reticular Activating System (RAS). The RAS is an inbuilt goal-setting device that tracks us toward our target and filters the type of information we let into our internal system. Spend time thinking about what it will be like once you have successfully achieved your goals. How are you going to feel? We really do become what we think!
7. Be realistic and reward yourself along the way - it is important to reward yourself along the way as you tick off your achievements. Give yourself a pat on the back for sticking to the process.
And remember, humans make mistakes, so don’t beat yourself up if you lose focus. If you find yourself breaking resolutions or experiencing distractions, sit down and go through the goal-setting process again, starting from step one.
This website contains even more great tips from Andrew May.