5 Important Steps to Make Your Goals Achievable

We all have dreams and goals we want to achieve, but it never seems easy to actually make them happen. The bigger your dreams, the harder they are to reach. But you know what? Just because something is difficult, doesn’t mean it can’t be done.

If you are willing to put in the work, your life could look completely different a year later. And just imagine how much can change in five years! The key to making your goals come true is to make them achievable. If you can do that, you’re already a few steps closer to your ultimate goal.

A lot of people have big dreams, but they are too afraid to even try to make them come true. Or they try a little, but fail and then give up. I hope you are not one of these people. Because big goals are supposed to be hard to achieve. Problems and failing from time to time are simply a part of the process. It’s not something to be afraid of.

Now, if you are serious about making your biggest dreams come true and you are ready to put in the work, let’s get started. The first step is to transform your distant dreams into achievable goals.

1. Where are you now and where do you want to be?

To be able to make your dreams come true, you have to be honest with yourself. Ask yourself what exactly is your current situation and how do you want to change it. Where exactly do you want to be?

You need to know how your current situation differs from your dream life so that you can change everything that needs to be changed in order to get where you want to be. Make sure to be brutally honest with yourself. Things don’t change unless you change them, one by one.

After you have figured out what your current reality is and how it differs from your dream situation, you have to figure out what are all the steps you need to take to get there. Notice that it’s not only about your specific goals, but your life overall.

If you want to become a working actress, you of course have to practice, audition, and work on a lot of different projects to get closer to your goal. But this might not be enough. Maybe you also need to work on how you present yourself or maybe you need to start a healthier diet to have the energy you need to make it all happen.

Ask yourself what are all the things you need to change, without leaving anything out.

2. Have clear goals

People often have very general goals, such as “I want to make more money” or “I want to move abroad”. These kinds of goals are too broad to work on. You have to know exactly what it is that you want so that you can create a clear plan to make things happen.

If you want to make more money, ask yourself how much more you would want, how much do you need and what exactly would you like to spend the money on. If you want to move abroad, where exactly would you like to move and when? What do you want to do there? What do you want to do before you move?

You need to have very specific goals, such as “I want to move to France next year to work as a hairstylist”. If you want to move to a certain city, or you think you still have to learn a lot more French, take it all into account. The more specific you can be, the better.

3. Break down your goals

After you’ve made your goal as clear as it can be, you have to break it down into small tasks, so that you can start taking steps towards it. Let’s say your goal is to move to France next year to work as a hairstylist. Now you need to know what exactly you need to do to make it happen.

What is required to be able to immigrate to France? How can you find a job there? Is there anything you need to complete before you can move? Be as clear and exact as possible, this will help you to understand what your plan entails and what you need to start doing right now.

Your goal might then become “I want to move to France next year to work as a hairstylist, and to do that I need to find information about moving to France, I need to finish my studies, find a job, and brush up my French”.

Now you have a good idea of what you need to work on to achieve your goal. But you need to break down your goals even more. Since you want to brush up on your French, how exactly are you going to do that? How will you study? How often? What materials will you use?

Don’t focus on your ultimate goal, just keep it in mind and focus on the small goals that you’ve broken down into actionable tasks. This will make it much easier to make progress.

4. Prepare for the problems you might encounter

The mistake many people make is that they just focus on how nice it’s going to be when they have finally achieved their goal. Often people are super excited at the beginning of the progress and assume it’s going to be smooth sailing until they’re finally sipping red wine in Paris after a long day of work as a successful hairstylist.

But the reality isn’t quite that easy. No matter how simple and achievable your goals seem, chances are that you will encounter some problems. Those problems often discourage people and if you haven’t prepared for them, you might be inclined to give up on your goal altogether.

It’s easy to tell yourself you will be studying French every day for two hours for the next year. But when you come home after a long day at work and all you can think about is eating pizza and watching Netflix, it might be hard to stick to your goal. This is why you need to prepare for possible problems.

Ask yourself what are all the problems you might encounter. What if your French isn’t good enough? What if your family says you shouldn’t go? Or what if you get bored of studying French? Or you can find a job, but not a cheap enough apartment?

Come up with solutions to the problems you think could come up and you’re already much closer to your goal.

Tip: Ask yourself why your goals have failed in the past to know what kind of problems you might face this time.

5. Keep the two biggest challenges in mind

Whatever your goal is, there are two things that will make all the difference. They are time and perseverance. If you don’t make sure you have both of these, you’re likely to fail. That’s why you have to keep them in mind from the beginning. This will help you to make your goals achievable.

1. Time

When it comes to time, you have to be realistic. You can’t do everything at once. A lot of people overestimate how much they can do in a short amount of time. An hour isn’t much time at all when you have a lot to do or when you’re doing something difficult you haven’t done before.

When you’re planning how to implement your goal into your life, you have to make sure you’re helping yourself as much as possible. This means making extra time for working on your goal and possibly giving up some other things that aren’t so important. Maybe you just don’t read as many books this year or don’t go to as many social events. You might also need way less free time than you think.

Try to minimize everything that isn’t all that important and make room for your goals. The biggest question is how you can make more time on normal weekdays. If you can add an extra hour here and there, you’re one step closer to where you want to be.

2. Perseverance

You can have all the time in the world, but still fail, if you don’t put in the effort. And because we tend to be excited about the work we have to do only when we are planning it and not so much when it’s actually time to work, this is something you need to take into account from the beginning.

There will be times when you feel like it’s not going to work and it’s all for nothing. You will be tired, ill, and unmotivated. What will you do then? To reach your goals, you have to have perseverance and keep going even when the going gets tough.

It’s also important that you make sure you’ll have enough energy to be productive when you come home from work and that you’ll find the strength to continue even when you feel like you’re not making any progress.

Keep in mind that even if you make rock-solid plans, things can still come up. Don’t hesitate to find new solutions and keep going. That’s what is going to make all the difference.

Tip: You can practice self-control if that is your weak point.

Conclusion

Remember that if you work hard and have a good plan, there’s nothing that can stop you. Don’t be afraid to go after your wildest dreams. Everything always seems hard in the beginning, but you will figure it all out and one day you will be happy you didn’t give up.

Let me know in the comments what are your biggest dreams and what are you going to do to make them come true! After that, subscribe to my newsletter to make sure you are motivated to work on your goals no matter what comes up! If you sign up now, you’ll get a free copy of ‘A Simple Guide to a Productive Life’!