You can increase your finances and indeed anything in your life if you follow this effective goal achievement system through.

I’m going to use a personal experience of goal setting to demonstrate how you can decide, plan and achieve a goal despite obstacles in the way.

The reason many people don’t achieve their goals is they don’t make the decision to actually set the goal in the first place. Frequently this is because they have no idea how to achieve their goal as they can’t see all the steps at the beginning so they just don’t bother setting it. Another reason is it may appear too big, and too scary so they just don’t start.

Imagine a car with its headlights on at night. With the full beam on you can see a couple of hundred metres. Beyond the reach of the beam it is pitch black and you have no idea what is ahead, but as the car moves forward the beam moves forward and with it you see the next bend in the road the next turning you need to take. So it is with your goals too, subsequent steps are revealed to you as you achieve each baby step towards your overall goal.

The basics of goal achievement are shown to us by the mechanics of S.M.A.R.T. Goals =

S specific – Run the London Marathon 2002
M measurable – At the end of the run; I have either run it or I haven’t. You must be able to see you have achieved the goal
A achievable – Is your goal actually achievable. Mine was achievable providing I put in the training
R realistic – I have to say I don’t like the realistic tag, I think that holds people back I suggest that you go for big lofty goals, but that is another article another day. Given I was 44 when I set the goal, only ever run short distances and was already injured you could say it wasn’t realistic, get my drift
T timebound – Yes April 2002, London Flora Marathon

Do you see how my goal of running the London Marathon 2002 met the Smart goal requirements? Do your goals?

Let me share with you a tool that helps you visually

The Goal Pyramid
Draw a pyramid type shape on a piece of paper. In the same way that you saw the old Egyptian pyramids made up of stones draw lines across your pyramid shape from left to right. Then turn each of those rows in bricks by dropping vertical lines down. So each row will have less bricks in it as you move to the top of the pyramid.

Using my goal of running my first marathon, in the top brick the pinnacle of the pyramid write London Marathon.

NOW, when I set this goal in June 2001 I had no idea how to run a marathon… and in the same way you won’t need to know all the steps to achieve your goal either.

You just need to know the Final Outcome and the First Couple of Steps which you write in each of the bricks on the bottom row of your pyramid from left to right.

When I set my goal to run the marathon, these were the small baby steps I set for myself as that is all I could see at the time

Make an appointment with the doctor to get referred to a specialist ( as I was already suffering a slight ankle injury)
See doctor and get referred to specialist
See specialist
Buy new running shoes
Find out how to apply for the London Marathon
Download a Marathon Training Program off the internet

You see none of these steps were big steps, but it started me on the road to running a marathon? A journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.

As I achieved each small goal I would mark it off using a coloured highlighter pen as that made me feel good, provided mental references that I could achieve goals and generated further belief in myself.

As I moved through the list marking things off as I achieved them I was putting new steps onto my goal pyramid. In my case I had reviewed the training program I had printed off and decided on a training program that fitted into my life style.

Running several times a week gradually building up my stamina, until my long run once week I was covering 18 -20 miles

Then disaster struck. I injured myself and was unable to train for 10 months, thus missing the London Marathon of 2002. I kept my goal of running a marathon in sight and I ran in the Flora London Marathon 2003.

My thoughts and How I Built A Sustainable Income Online Using This Technique

Set a plan and follow it. Sure you will have some bad days but keep on track
It is essential to keep you goal in sight at all times
You must persevere to overcome obstacles
Time scales may come and go through no fault of your own. Some sceptics will say well Graeme you failed your goal of running the 2002 London marathon. Injury stopped me running in 2002 but I kept focused and I went onto run two marathons in one year the London in April 2003 in 3 hours and 55 and the New York the same year in 4 hours and 26 minutes.

Achieving any goal is 90% mindset. You can train like mad for a marathon or anything but if you think you can’t achieve it, then something will stop you reaching that goal.

Successful people apply effective goal achievement systems to their lives and businesses and it is for this reason that some people can make five figure monthly incomes and others make nothing.

I now use this same methodology that enabled me to keep focused to achieve my goal of running marathons to achieve many personal and business goals and generate a sustainable income online and so can YOU.

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