We all have dreams, we all have desires. Some are materialistic desires while others are emotional, social, or spiritual desires. But we all have desires. To transform my desires into goals I started using the H.E.A.R.T. Model for goal setting. Not only me but many of my clients have benefitted from this model too.
While talking about the HEART model I also talked about preparing for the action. If I had 7 hours to cut a tree I’ll spend 6 hours sharpening my axe. This article is about sharpening the axe.
There are 5 M’s that you need to be aware of while working on achieving your goals.
Mindset
While talking about goals it is more important to set your mindset, than your targets. What I mean here is to set your mindset for the kind of person you want to become. The goal is to become a healthy person and not lose 10kgs. The goal is to become a good parent and not reduce scolding your kids. The goal is to become a rich person and not earn a million dollars. Set your mind like the person you want to become and start living like one. So when you make a decision on what you should eat ask yourself what would a healthy person eat. Make decisions like the person you want to become.
Motivation
Understand the Why?’ behind your goal. What is your motivation? Why are you setting up these goals? If you are not motivated enough to achieve your goals, you will not be able to leave your comfort zone and the growth zone definitely starts after that. Even if you are successful in the internal fights you would turn back at the first sight of external trouble and hence it is extremely important that you have a very strong motivating force for achieving your goals. This motivation can be internal or external, but in my opinion, internal motivations work better in the long run while external motivations are excellent for immediate gratification.
Mini-Goals
It is easier to achieve goals that can be achieved in a short span of time. It’s better to target reading one book a week than 52 books in a year. This way when you complete the book one of your mini-goals is already achieved. Your brain celebrates and is ready to accept next week’s goal. On the other hand, 52 books feel like a burden and if you are not able to read for a few weeks it feels like piling up and you are more likely to give up. When I started writing my book I set up mini-goals like creating a flow about what I want to say, then listing down the chapters, writing each chapter was a mini-goal, even- proofreading and creating the graphics were set up as goals. I celebrated each achievement and it motivated me to keep writing.
Maps
If you are going treasure hunting, don’t forget the map. If you want something, always remember that someone, somewhere in the world has created a map for it. Someone has been on this path and they have left breadcrumbs for you to follow. Find out about the people who have achieved the goal and also the ones who could not. You can learn a lot from their journey. Refer to the various maps created by these people and create your own map for reaching your goal. No, I am not telling you to follow someone blindly but I would strongly recommend taking suggestions from both who achieved or could not achieve their goals.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a very important quality that you need to develop in order to achieve your goals. Neither ruminating about the past nor planning the future is going to actually help you in achieving your goal. Rather, what will actually help is taking action in the present. Being in the present moment fully aware of what is happening around you is extremely helpful in grabbing the opportunities that come your way. Most of us lose many opportunities because we do not even realize that this opportunity has come our way. We are not able to identify the expressways and keep struggling in the smaller lanes.
There are many ways to develop mindfulness and one of my tried and tested ways is meditation. You can read about the types of meditation here.
To read similar articles on achieving goals click here.