"A dream is just a dream. A goal is a dream with a plan and a deadline."? Harvey MacKay.
It’s a new year and no doubt you’ve been making some new years resolutions?.
Lose weight, get rich, stop smoking, spend more time with family and friends, the list of resolutions I’ve heard people make are endless. My own list is endless too.
This year though I’m trying something different. I remember seeing the quote above by Harvey MacKay some time ago and it’s so true. We can all have dreams, but unless we do something about them that is all they stay, a dream.
If you truly want something to happen then you have to make it happen. So, instead of saying you want to lose weight, plan how you will lose weight. Set some deadlines then plan how you will achieve them. If you want to spend more time with family and friends, plan how you will make that extra time available.
OK, so it won’t necessarily work with everything…or will it?
One of the resolutions I have heard in the past is someone saying ‘I want to be rich’. Nice dream, but if there is no plan in place to make that happen, then it will never happen. Playing the lottery every week isn’t really a good enough plan to get rich, although I did once speak to someone who said they would love to win the lottery, they never actually played it. This is like saying you want to spend more time with family, but I’ve already made my mind up that this will never happen as I’m already way too busy.
If you really want something to happen, don’t just wish for it. You are the only person that can make things happen, and to do that you need a plan of attack. Here are some points that will help:
1. Consider what your overall goal is, then break it down into smaller milestones. This will help keep you motivated as you reach each of the goals.
2. Ensure that your goals are realistic, and if related to health, are healthy. This will ensure that you achieve the goal you set and ensure you don’t do any damage to your health.
3. Write your goal down. This helps with commitment.
4. Write a list of things that you need to do in order to achieve your goal. Add deadlines to each of these. This provides you with the steps you need to take to meet your goal.
5. Review progress on a regular basis. This ensures you are on track.
6. If you miss a deadline, don’t panic or get yourself down about it. It’s not a failure. Instead, revisit the goal and consider if it was too challenging in the first place. If it wasn’t, look at what happened to cause you to miss it. Was something else getting in the way? Were you not fully committed to achieving it? Once you’ve understood, re-jig the plan and get back to it.
7. Tell yourself that you can do it. Self-belief is huge when it comes to carrying things out.
8. Ask for help and support. You don’t need to do things by yourself.
If your plan is skills related, we have a whole host of solutions available to help with your personal development, take a look around the site and see what we can do to help you achieve your goals this new year.
From me and all of the team at Revolution Learning and Development Ltd, happy new year.
David
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