1. Have a Plan
Studies reveal only a small number of people actually set goals and an even smaller number actually follow through. It’s much easier to get what you want if you have a target. Write down your goals. Brainstorm them at first - short and long-term goals. When you edit your goals notice if they fall into the important categories of life such as health, finances, relationships, education, career and recreation. Is there a balance of goals in these areas?

Integrate your goals into your everyday life. Goal setting is really nothing more than being conscious of the important areas of your life that aren’t working too well and taking some deliberate steps to improve these areas. Work out how you’re going to achieve these goals. What are the steps you can make in the short term?

2. Know your Motivation Strategy

People are motivated in different ways. Some of these ways include:

1. Intrinsic motivation: This person is motivated from within. They’ll typically have strict internal rules. If they set their alarm to get up and exercise at 6.30AM, they’ll do it. They don’t need anybody to go with them.
2. Extrinsic motivation: This person is motivated externally. They’ll more likely set their alarm to get up and exercise at 6.30AM if they’re going to be exercising with somebody else.
3. Pleasure: This person attaches more pleasure than pain to achieving their goal e.g. they’ll be more motivated by the good feeling of fitting into certain clothes than the bad feeling of not fitting into them.
4. Pain: This person is more motivated by pain than pleasure e.g. seeing themselves looking overweight in a photograph or to avoid health problems.

Discover how you are specifically motivated and take advantage of it. If you’re unsure simply remember how you’ve been motivated into action in the past.

3. Understand & Utilise your Mind
The mind is a powerful tool that is often neglected when it comes to achieving goals or making changes.

Some of the common ways the mind can be utilised include the use of mental rehearsal (visualization), affirmations. It can also be aided through modalities such as Hypnotherapy, Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Time Line Therapy.

Your mind has a conscious and an unconscious component. The conscious part of your mind is that part that is aware of things right now. Its job is to filter your world. The unconscious is the more powerful part of the mind, containing beliefs, memories, emotions, and habits and is responsible for approximately 80% of our behaviour. In order to avoid self-sabotage it is important to gain rapport between the conscious and unconscious minds. One of the basic ways of doing these is to monitor and improve how you communicate with yourself.

4. Remain Optimistic
Long-term studies reveal that having an optimistic attitude will provide you with a number of benefits in many departments of life. Optimism works!

The true test of optimism is when times are tough. How are you going to react to the difficult times? The worst place to be is having the attitude of ‘I’ve tried everything and nothing works for me’.

The optimist is flexible, lateral, creative and resilient.

5. Expect the Unexpected
Life will test you! It is impossible to control everything that happens in life and occasionally the best-laid plans go awry. Sometimes you might have momentum towards achieving a goal and suddenly get thrown off track.

When setting a goal have a contingency plan. This plan should ideally be about what will get you going again e.g. look at the whys or the reasons of your goal, or use your motivation strategy, or use your mind in a resourceful way.

6. Be Flexible
If you’re trying to change and you aren’t getting the results you desire adjust your actions and behaviour. Brainstorm what you could do differently.

The more versatile you are in your behaviour the more likely you’ll either make that change or achieve that goal.

7. Take Small Steps
This is a simple but powerful strategy! Goals are achieved one step at a time.

The opposite of taking small steps is feeling overwhelmed, and this typically leads to inaction.

In 2003 a good friend of mine walked across Australia, lugging his 70kg cart along the 4200km trek. His strategy was to break down the massive journey into 90-minute increments, then to take a break. In the break he would rest, reassess and start again. How could you utilise this strategy? Could you aim to lose the first kilo instead of focusing solely on the 20kg, walk around the block before overwhelming yourself about the 40-minute sessions, write the first page of the book, or clean one drawer in the bedroom?

Taking these small steps consistently will enable you to build momentum. Combining this momentum with patience is a sure-fire way of getting where you want to go.

8. Link Enjoyment to the Change/Process
Too often making a change or achieving a goal is linked to hard work, effort and pain. Every now and again reward yourself for your efforts. If you followed your fitness plan for 2 weeks get a massage, or go the movies, or at the very least pat yourself on the back for your efforts.

Improve how you communicate to yourself. Too often we are hard and unforgiving of ourselves. This typically doesn’t work. Get your brain to associate enjoyment to making the change or performing the behaviour that you desire.