The Key to Achieving Your Goals in the New Year

I recently overhead a group of teenagers talking about the subject of goal-setting or I should say the futility of this activity. And you may share their sentiments as we all know that while many New Year's resolutions are set, few are achieved.

So what's the reason for this and how can you avoid this pitfall?

Well, going back to the young boys I overheard - I could tell that they hadn't even given goal-setting any deep thought. They had not truly considered what they wanted to achieve in their lives and with their lives. And many people are like this. The setting of New Year's resolutions or indeed any goal is often done hastily in the wrong frame of mind and people often set goals for the wrong reasons. What's more, people often do not set goals that are worthy of them, yet the question that runs through their mind either consciously or sub-consciously is:

"Am I worthy of this goal?"

And herein lies the crux of why so many people fail in their attempt to achieve their goals.

They do not believe they are worthy of their goals and so self-sabotage their attempts to achieve their goals.

The problem therefore lies not with the goal but with the mindset or the identity of the individual setting the goal.

You see, we all know that to achieve your goals you have to take action. The bigger the goal the more actions you have to take and often the bigger the actions that you have to take. And it's not just about taking action. You have to consistently take actions that propel you in the direction of your goal. If you stop we lose momentum and often the impetus to continue at all.

Yet, time and time again, this is exactly what happens. You abandon your goals and you have very good reasons for doing so…

~ Not enough time
~ Not enough money
~ Not enough energy
~ Not enough connections
~ Not enough resources

But, in reality, the reason why you fail to achieve your goals is because there is a mismatch between your identity and your goal.

"We are never able to do anything consistently that it inconsistent with how we see ourselves therefore we fall short of the goal because we did not engage in the action consistently enough… If there is a mismatch between the goal and our identity then our identity will trump the goal because our identity is a dictator of play."
Stephen Pierce

So what is the solution?

It's clear, isn't it? You have to work on your mindset as much as you have to work on doing the things that will move you towards achieving your goals.

There's a television program called Faking It. It's a great program and a testament of what individuals can accomplish with the right approach. Individuals on the program had four (4) weeks to learn a completely new skill and convince experts that they were the real deal. For instance, in one show a professional nightclub dancer became a show jumper and, in another, a lawyer became a rapper.

Now, a month is not a lot of time to master a new skill. Yet, in most cases the amateurs were able to fool the experts. So how did they achieve this?

They completely immersed themselves in their new world. They became the person they needed to be in order to perform the role they needed to perform. Often they had to change their wardrobe, way of walking and talking, hairstyle, makeup, etc. to become the "new person".

You can do the same.

You need to identify who you need to be in order to do the things you need to do to achieve your goals. Remember, your outer world is merely a reflection of your inner world and so ask yourself the following:

"Who must you be inside in order to materialize outside the thing you desire?"
Stephen Pierce

At this point, you may be saying to yourself that you don't know. If this is the case, simply identify someone who has achieved what you want to achieve. Study them and model them. The better you're able to achieve this, the easier it will be for you to consistently take the actions you need to take to achieve your goals. And the better you become at this, the more effortless achieving your goals - New Year's resolutions or otherwise will become.

Happy New Year!