Whether you’re trying to lose weight, become a better parent, or perhaps simply root out some bad habits that you’ve acquired, meeting your goals is, more often than not, essentially a battle with yourself. As such, it can be too easy to fall off the wagon or let temporary lapses of judgment turn into long-lasting ones.

While we cannot guarantee that the tips below will help you achieve your goals, they are nevertheless time-tested ideas that have worked for millions of successful people time and again over the years. Many of these, you may already know but need to be reminded of regardless. Check out these tried and true tips for achieving your goals below:

1.) Wear a daily reminder

Symbols can be a very powerful way of ensuring you stay in the right state of mind. Wearing a necklace, wristband, or even a tattoo with a message or a symbol of your commitment can serve as a long-term reminder of what your goals are. Of the mentioned options, silicone wristbands are the cheapest and least obtrusive. Check out your custom wristband creation options here.

2.) Allocate your willpower wisely

For most people, willpower is a finite resource that gets depleted the more decisions you have to make in a day. This is the reason folks like Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and Albert Einstein famously wore the same things every day and why top athletes rely on trainers and nutritionists. Everything we decide on depletes our ability to make thoughtful decisions later on. To stay true to our goals, we have to treat willpower like a precious resource so that we aren’t distracted by things that don’t matter.

3.) Stick to a schedule

To build off the previous tip, keeping yourself to a schedule is an excellent way to conserve willpower and allows you to focus on making important decisions. When you’re on a schedule, you no longer have to waste time and energy deciding on mundane things, such as when to work out, what to eat, or when to meditate, or any of several everyday things you want to accomplish.

4.) Track and document your progress

If you don’t actively track your progress, it becomes impossible to tell just how effective your current strategy is. At worst, you may even be moving in the opposite direction that you need to go. Documenting your progress also helps you catch yourself in the middle of making a mistake, and you can correct for this early on before your progress is significantly set back.

5.) Celebrate small victories and milestones

If you’ve been tracking your progress, you should be able to see if you’ve been succeeding at reaching your ultimate goal. However, progress can feel empty and your motivation can be compromised if you don’t allow yourself to celebrate milestones.

Celebrating small wins can help you stay positive and help make your progress feel more real. Without these small celebrations, your progress can feel abstract and “less real”, which deal a real blow to your will to go on. 

If you do celebrate, though, keep it proportional to the milestone. You want to reserve the big rewards for when you finally meet your major goal.

6.) Take things a little at a time

Biting off more than we can chew can sometimes be the biggest mistake that we can make. Those of us who have tried to lose weight or save money in the bank can probably relate to this. 

If the goal is long term, it’s usually better to treat things like a marathon rather than a sprint. While going all out in the beginning can be a great way to earn motivation and confidence, we have to weigh that against the risk of burnout and our ability to follow through. Dialing your immediate goals back a little if you’re overwhelmed is perfectly acceptable so long as you keep the final goal in mind.

7.) Have someone keep you accountable

The next time you’re taking on a major life goal, keep yourself accountable to your spouse, children, or friends. If you’re not accountable to someone, it can be a little too easy to cut yourself some slack. While this is sometimes necessary, it can lead to a slippery slope where you are no longer doing anything meaningful to keep yourself on the ball.

On the other hand, if you’re accountable to someone else, you have them to keep you on the straight and narrow. This is the exact reason why top athletes always have at least one trainer. Without a trainer, they can easily fall out of their schedule, and they can easily lose accountability.

8.) Break up big problems into smaller ones

“Divide and conquer” is a legitimate strategy for handling problems outside of a military context. Virtually every big problem will be easier to solve if you look at them as groups of little problems that could be defeated one at a time. This will allow you to concentrate more of your resources into each issue rather than spreading yourself too thin taking everything on at once.

9.) Don’t be harsh on yourself for small mistakes

The reason you’re reading this is because you already know that reaching your goals is hard. Mistakes are just a natural part of doing anything worthwhile. For this reason, you should expect them and allow yourself some leeway for making small errors on your way to finally completing your goals. 

Conclusion

If something is worthwhile, chances are having it won’t be easy. But with the tips we’ve shared, you’ll hopefully have a better chance at finally achieving the things you desire. Good luck on reaching your goals!

 Have you tried these ideas before? Did they work for you? Why or why not? We’d love to hear from you!