Why Your Goals Need To Become An Agenda If You Want To Achieve Them

Over the last few years, I’ve come across more and more people who set goals but rarely ever end up fulfilling them. In the last few weeks, I finally decided to ask them why they set a goal if they don’t plan to fulfill it.

The answers were all over the place, but one common theme kept repeating itself. People said they would love to achieve their goals, but not doing so wasn’t the end of the world. Could it be that the word ‘goal’ had now become a hope or wish for many people?

That’s what the case seemed to be. The scary part was that many of these individuals were completely comfortable not achieving their goals. For me, goals are something that can make or break me. I push myself to go above and beyond to achieve everything I put on my white board.

This got me thinking that the word goal might just be the problem. We do things no matter what if it’s on our schedule, but we almost always put things off that aren’t necessary. This habit carries over from our professional lives to our personal lives.

Instead of calling your objectives goals, a better word is an agenda. These are the things you plan to get done throughout the next quarter, months or year. They used to say a goal is a wish with a deadline, but it seems as if too many people are just hoping for the best anyway.

Here are some reasons why your goals need to become an agenda if you want to achieve them and here’s how you can do it:

Put Them In Your Schedule

People who set goals often have trouble consistently carrying them out over a longer period of time. By creating an agenda of things that need to get done, there’s a higher chance it’ll actually end up in your schedule.

Goals aren’t attainable on their own, it requires work or effort from your part to achieve them. The first step is planning out a list of things you will do to get to the finish line.

Create Desperation 

By creating an agenda for your goals, you put yourself in a mode of desperation. If I told you that you had no money in your wallet, how hard would you work today? Probably a lot harder than if you had $500 in your wallet.

Why? Because you are desperate. You know that without money you cannot pay for gas, eat or do some of the bare necessities in everyday life. If your goals don’t have a sense of desperation behind them, you’ll be in trouble!

Hold Yourself Accountable

Another thing I quickly learned from talking to different people was that they didn’t have any pressure to complete their goals. Many people even admitted setting goals just because it seemed like the right thing to do.

If you cannot hold yourself accountable to your agenda, find someone who can. Share your agenda with family and friends that truly care about you and your success. In school, you do your homework because your teacher is constantly holding you accountable. If your teacher didn’t check your homework, how many kids would really do it? 

Break It Up Into Pieces

You don’t have to achieve your agenda all at once. You can create a bi-weekly agenda of things you plan to accomplish that will eventually help you complete your whole agenda. Write out the things you wish to get done and plan for it.

By breaking it up into smaller chunks, you’re going to be far more successful. Not only that, but you won’t feel as overwhelmed as you initially did. I’ve found a lot of success achieving my goals just by breaking them up into more manageable pieces.

Conclusion

Goals are an extremely important part of being successful in life. From seeing numerous people fail, I learned that creating an agenda works far better than setting goals do. Have you tried a similar technique? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

photo credit: `James Wheeler via photopin cc