Your No-Nonsense Guide to Setting and Achieving Your Goals: Part 3

It is hard to believe that Friday will be upon us...and also is April Fool's Day!!!  So on that note, let us get back to our No Nonsense Guide to Setting and Achieving Your Goals.  In Part 2 I discussed 5 reasons why you need goals, and today, I will continue with reasons why goals fail.  As I have stated previously, this wedding officiant has to have goals in order to succeed, and to keep my schedule on track.  I hope you are enjoying our blog post thus far, and as always, feel free to reach out to me with any questions or concerns.

Why Goals Fail

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” ~ Henry Ford

Now that you know why you need goals, setting the right ones and meeting them can be somewhat of a problem. More often than not we fail to meet some of the goals we set for ourselves. There are several major reasons for this.

·      Vague goals that lead to setting the wrong priorities. Sometimes you manage to find time to do things that don’t add any value to your life and aren’t relevant to your goals. You might have a goal to write a book within a year. Instead of writing to reach that goal, you work on other stuff like getting pulled into Facebook or chatting on forums about something else. If the goal is important enough for you, make it a priority to work on it.

·      Listening to the wrong people. Often we associate with those who steer us in the wrong direction for whatever reason. It could be they are afraid you will leave them if you succeed. Or maybe they are jealous of your ambition.

·      Our own selfish acts keep us from achieving our goals. Selfish acts such as not being willing to change a bad habit or thinking we deserve something without having to do the work.

·      We procrastinate. We make excuses. Lots of excuses (Don't feel bad, this wedding officiant has done this several times in my life!!!). It seems it’s easier to come up with an excuse than a reason why we need to be doing something. We’ve all made them. They range from not having enough time to the full moon. We’d rather watch TV or put off doing something because it’s easier than tackling our goals. Excuses are just that: excuses and they keep you at a standstill. Excuses often come about when we are afraid or uncertain of the outcome or the next step or what people will think. Or they happen when we are feeling lazy. We just don’t want to get out of our comfort zone and tackle what needs to be done to move us toward our goal. 

·      Negative thoughts and fears. We grow our fears larger than we think of our abilities. Fear of failure (or success) kills dreams before they get to the first step. It’s often that we believe things won’t work out (or if they do, what will change), and this keeps us from working on our goals.

Fear robs you of self-confidence. It allows you to come up with reasons (excuses) why you can’t accomplish your goals.

·      Lack higher purpose. Your “WHY” is weak. You have to know what your goal means to you and why you set it. Are you chasing after something because it’s expected of you or to keep up with your peers? If you set a goal for the wrong reason and spend time chasing after things you really don’t want, you lose your motivation to continue. You aren’t committed to them enough to achieve them and end up wasting time, money and energy. Instead figure out your “WHY” before you set your goals.

·      Working on too many things at once. Trying to do many different things spreads your attention too thin. It can keep us from developing our skills and expertise in an area we would thrive and be passionate about.

You need to discover what you are really good at and most driven to achieve and focus on it. Set goals to achieve success at that before you move on to something else.

·      Not having a plan. As the saying goes when you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Having a plan is an essential part of reaching your goals. It’s the road map that gets you from point A to point B. Ask yourself how you plan to achieve your goal and what actions you need to take. Then use the answers to make a plan. A plan is the steps you need to take to reach your goal. Use these to set your priorities for what you need to do and when you need to do each step.

·      Not responsible and lack of commitment to the goal. This is kind of like knowing what your “why” is. We’ve all done it. We start a diet with good intentions on Monday but by the end of the week we begin to cheat until we are completely off track. You need to be fully committed to your goal to follow through. Excuses, friends and those donuts will always pop up when you least expect them to derail you or cause you to put off your goals.

·      Bad habits derail you. You have a habit of giving up when the going gets tough. It’s easier to just quit than to work through problems. Your goal may require you to change the way you eat or to exercise more or work harder or put yourself in front of others. It’s easier to grab a bag of chips and sit on the couch or to pass the work on to someone else. Changing your bad habits is a necessary step in achieving your goals.

There are many reasons we seem to fail at goals. One of the biggest, of course, is the failure to set goals in the first place. Even an informal goal is better than none at all. Lack of action and following through on your goals often comes from fear. Recognizing your fear and committing to working through it will go a long way in reaching your goals.

OK, stay tuned for Part 4 when I discuss how to successfully set your goals...

Blessings,

Dr. Anna Mock-Ward

Officiate My Wedding by Dr. Anna Mock-Ward; a Subdivision of Wisdom Heart Ministry

Your No-Nonsense Guide to Setting and Achieving Your Goals: Part 2

In today's blog, we will continue with our guide for setting and achieving your goals.  If you have not already read part 1, be sure to review my blog to get you started for your success in setting your goals.  This wedding officiant is here to help you on this journey, so let us continue onward bounds!!!

Why You Need Goals

“Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail with no destination.”– Fitzhugh Dodson

Almost all successful achievements begin with setting a goal. It’s the step that motivates you to take the first step toward what you want. You probably know people who have a passive approach in life, and they don’t set any goals. They just go through their life, day-by-day, doing the same thing from year to year. They don’t set a goal to achieve anything and that is exactly what they achieve.

The following list gives you 5 more reasons you need goals in life.

1. To move you in a focused direction. Have a goal, especially one that is written down with a set date to accomplish it. Your goals represent your inner desires. Your inner desires are what motivate you in life. Goals are a constant reminder of why you are doing the actions you’re doing. They are the path that leads you forward.  I know this all too well!!!  I not only run my wedding business, but also manage my Wisdom Heart Ministry.  This wedding officiant in York PA must stay focused at ALL times!!!

2. Turn big dreams into small steps. A big dream can seem impossible to accomplish. It can be discouraging. But when you set goals the right way, you break those larger, more intimidating goals down into smaller, achievable steps. These smaller goals make it easier to see what you need to do each step of the way.

3. Hold you accountable. Having concrete goals and writing them down gives you a timeline for achievement. If you fail along the path, you have something to look to for re-evaluation. You might be humbled if you look back on goals you set for 6 months, a year or even 5 years ago only to see you were supposed to accomplish a lot more than you did. It’s a sign that you went off the path with a wrong turn. Having these concrete goals written down helps you see where you need to go and what changes you need to make to reach them.

  

4.  Goals help us believe in ourselves. Goals are a way to fuel your ambition. Goals give you a plan for your life and hold you accountable as well as give you inspiration to aim for things you might have thought were impossible to achieve. For example, maybe you want to accomplish something many people only dream of. Setting a goal to reach that dream and the steps it takes to get there helps you see you progress.

5. Give you a picture of what you really want. More often than not, you have set goals that don’t really reflect what you really want. Maybe you think you need more money but what you really need is a change of environment. Or maybe you’ve set a goal to change jobs when what you really need is to work at something you can be passionate about. Having a vague sense of success keeps you from going after what you truly desire. Setting goals forces you to ask yourself what you really want and re-assess your goals as you gain perspective and self-reflection on what really makes you happy.

Finally, goals are necessary if you want to succeed at anything. They act as a map to guide you to what you truly desire and hope to achieve in your life. You use goals to reach personal, spiritual and professional success so you are living life to the fullest.

OK stay tuned for Part 3 when I will discuss why goals fail...

Blessings,

Dr. Anna Mock-Ward

Officiate My Wedding and Wisdom Heart Ministry

Your No-Nonsense Guide to Setting and Achieving Your Goals

 Do you know how important setting goals are to achieving success at anything? Do you set goals? Are they effective? Do you have written goals? If you answered no to these questions, you aren’t alone. Research has shown that 90 percent of people don’t have written goals.  In the following, this Wedding Officiant in York PA will give you guidance to secure your goal dreams.  I am not only a Wedding Officiant, but run my Wisdom Heart Ministry, and often guide my congregations of matters of the heart and soul.  This issue at hand is but one issue that is often brought up among my members.  I hope this information will help, and as always, feel free to reach out to me for more guidance...

Think of it like this. You go to the supermarket without a list. You roam the aisles, grabbing whatever catches your eyes. When you get home, you realize you’ve forgotten half the things you need. So now you have to make another trip to the store. Not only have you wasted time, but money as well, on things you don’t need. Having goals without writing them down is like shopping without a list.

The one thing all successful people, whether they are an athlete, a business owner or someone who has lost weight and kept it off, have in common is that they set goals for themselves.  Many people work hard but don’t seem to get anywhere. They feel as if they’re adrift, floating from one day to the next.  A key reason for this is because they haven’t taken the time to think about what they want in life and they don’t set any formal goals. It’s kind of like starting out on trip without any idea of where you are going. It’s probably not a good idea.

Goal setting is powerful. It puts you in the process of thinking of your ideal future and what motivates you to work toward that vision. Goals are your road-map to your future. Creating the goals road-map is the process which helps you choose what you want in life, where you want to go and who you want to be. When you know precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you need to focus your efforts to achieve the end result.  Having goals will help you quickly spot when you are going in the wrong direction or the distractions that lead you astray.  So how do you set goals that you can achieve and how can you avoid failure? That’s where this guide can help.

Welcome to the No-Nonsense Guide to Setting and Achieving Goals report. This guide is designed to take you from floating through life to setting and achieving goals in a simple to understand, easy to implement format. Get ready - this guide will move you to set goals for change.

What you’re about to learn in this guide:

·    Why you need goals

·    Why goals fail

·    How to successfully set goals

·    Tips from the experts

·    How to follow through

Before we get to the heart of goal setting, we should look at more reasons why you need goals to succeed in everything you do.

Stay tuned for our next blog to continue in this Awesome setting and achieving goals...Your Goals for Success!!!

Blessings,

Dr. Anna