Toby Nwazor: 6 Ways You Can Still Attain Your 2015 Goals

Setting goals at the beginning of the year is easy and sweet. There is a surge of energy, excitement and zeal that comes immediately you do it. With this new found enthusiasm, you can drive through the goals for the first couple of days.

However, the tide changes after a while. The excitement wears out, and the enthusiasm dies. You suddenly lose interest in everything too. (Yes, I know that feeling.) That is exactly why most New Year resolutions don’t last beyond the first two weeks.

Like play like play friends, we have just about 100 days left this year. What have you done? What have you given up on? How far with your goals? What happened to all those things you said you were going to accomplish this year?

Below are six ways you can still accomplish your goals for the year.

Maximize Your Strengths
Are you are an introvert or are you outgoing? Do you feel your best self very early in the morning? Or does the day begin for you after everybody else has gone to bed? These little traits are strengths in their own rights.

For example, let’s assume that you don’t like jogging, but your goal is to lose Xkg in weight. You can skip rope or swim more frequently instead.

I have a friend that hates reading for instance. Instead of allowing that to hinder him from reaching his goal of reading a certain number of books, he resorted to listening to pod casts. Either way, he still gets the knowledge he craves.

Similarly, find out what your own strengths are and maximize them.

Review Your Goals Regularly
Last year I set a certain number of goals in my business. To keep myself driven, I made it a daily habit to write down my goals and the things I will do to accomplish them. The unique thing was that I woke up around 3-4am every morning to do this.

Doing this usually fired me up with motivation each morning before I leave my house. It also ensured that I was always thinking of reaching the set goals.

Friends, having your thoughts fixed on your goals will make your brain think up new ideas of how you can reach them.

This way, you never lack ideas or motivation to carry through fulfilling your goals.

Break Down Your Goals Into Small Bits
Big goals can be demoralizing at times. Many times you may just feel like giving up since your little efforts don’t seem to count.

Setting a goal of having a turnover of #10,000,000 in six months in your SME for instance, is good. However it could be counterproductive with time. Why not go further and break it down to a #400 000 weekly turnover goal? Doing this will make it easy for you to motivate yourself and your sales team.

Moreover, seeing the results every week can give you all the motivation you need to try harder the following week.

Take Little Actions Everyday
My best formula for accomplishing any goal is this:

Little Daily + Review + Little Daily – Give-up = GOAL ACCOMPLISHED.

I jog for 15 minutes every day for instance. By most people’s standard, that is a very little time frame.

Most of my neighbours who don’t jog at all expect me to run for one hour or more. You go fear naa. I cannot come and die o.

What they don’t realize is that running for 15 minutes every day equals running for one hour in four days.

Have you broken down your goals into smaller pieces? The next thing to do is to focus on a small piece at a time. This will help you to not be overwhelmed and give up easily.

Surround Yourself With Highly Motivated People
It doesn’t matter what you want to do, someone else has done it before. In fact, someone could be doing it presently.

We were not created to be islands. Nobody succeeds in isolation. A stick of wood that burns alone quickly dies down. When surrounded by other burning sticks however, it will be difficult for its fire to be put out.

Get yourself around people who are goal oriented. There is nothing as motivating as seeing people who are passionately pursuing and accomplishing a set of goals.

Listen to the stories of how they stayed put until to end. This will make you get out of the pit of despair. It will fire you up to chase after yours too.

Make Yourself Accountable to Someone You Look Up To
I used to be aqua phobic to an extent. Earlier this year however, I made it a goal to go and have a swim.  It was to be my first time of ever entering the swimming pool and I felt embarrassed about it.

One week later, I accomplished it easily. And now, I love swimming. But were there times I felt like giving up and not going on with it? You bet.

What then made me dig my heels in and do it?

Simple, I made myself accountable to someone who I have the uttermost respect for.

I knew he would ask me about the experience, and I just couldn’t imagine telling him stories.

Similarly, when you set your goals, discuss them with someone you trust who can follow you up. Having someone you respect regularly check up on the progress you have made will keep you on your toes. It will help you stick to those goals even when you don’t feel like it.

Your Turn.

What percentage of your 2015 goals have you accomplished? Are there other strategies apart from the above that helped you accomplish them? Is there a dumped goal you think you need to revisit?

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