Secret To Achieving Your Goals...

Don’t focus on the destination, focus on who you’ll become. There’s a term in psychology called the progress principle and it says that happiness doesn’t come from achieving our goals, it comes from making progress. Our journey is what builds our character, confidence and authenticity.

One of the main reasons we don’t achieve our goals is because we keep doing things we think we should instead of doing things we really want to do. Up to 67% of gym memberships go unused. Most of us want to be in better shape but going to the gym after a long day of work just doesn’t sound appealing.

But what if you were going dancing, surfing, rock climbing, or whatever activity aligns with your personality, would you be more inclined to go? Of course! We all want to have more fun. Fun or more specifically, adventure (according to Dr. Richard Swartz's, Internal Family Systems Model of Psychotherapy") is one of our 9 biological and evolutionary needs. And when we neglect these needs we feel stressed, angry, anxious, depressed and burnt out...

Some other secrets to achieving your goals is good time management which really just comes down to self-awareness and combining multiple needs. For example; I value health and I’ve been going to the gym for over two decades but I got bored. I knew the value of yoga so I tried that first but it wasn’t for me. It wasn’t that I didn't like it but it just didn’t make me feel better. After analyzing my situation (my needs) I realized it was because I wanted to have more fun, meet other people and spend more time with my kids. So I started taking dance lessons and taking my kids out to surf, rock climb, hike, and anything I could think of that fit my criteria…

A good way to track your time is to write in a journal. Every Time you find yourself not doing something that contributes to your growth, your happiness or becoming the person you want to become, then write that down and how long you did it for. For example if you watched tv for an hour each day of the week. Or if you’re scrolling through social media 3 times a day for 20 minutes or more, that adds up.

And studies have proven social media makes us miserable, constantly comparing ourselves to other people and hearing about all the problems in the world just sucks all the energy and joy out of life. So why wouldn’t we choose to make progress towards our goals when everything points to that being the most intelligent way to live?

We have lots of goals in life that contribute to our happiness. We can and should have fitness goals, professional goals, relationship goals etc… This is also how we get good at life. Building our skills, confidence and self-esteem by overcoming obstacles and learning from our failures…

If you found this helpful or have any questions please let me know in the comments.