Olawunmi Adegoke: Here’s What You Need to Execute Your Goals

Do you know that if you were left to your devices, you wouldn’t achieve anything?

This is what I have noticed about myself over time. It’s not like I don’t know what to do. It’s just that I don’t find myself doing what I should be doing as at when needed.

This is very typical of what the Apostle Paul said in the Holy Bible. I have come to realise that any great achievement isn’t dependent only on the plans we make, but also on the force or energy that propels us to keep taking actions on the go. Goal setting is one practice that I can recommend any day anytime, but much more than setting goals, there is a need for performance.

Recently, I was having a conversation with some of my colleagues at work, asking them about their reading habit (by the way, I coach people and help them develop a consistent reading habit), and one of them told me that he doesn’t like reading big books. Inquiring further, I realised that the issue wasn’t even about reading big books, but rather about being conscious of reading. After we recognised the issue, we discussed the different ways he can build a reading habit, and then he set off to implement them.

Personally, I like to always take small goals and build on them. Using this practice, I realise that if one is able to plan and execute a small goal, it would be much easier to do so with bigger goals. Now, you might be saying, I am all alone. I don’t know how to kick myself up. Well, then these should be of great help:

Write out a definite plan for what you want to achieve
By this, I mean that you write out what you want to do and when you want it completed. If you want to read a book, you can plan to do so within a month. When you do this, your brain registers the plan with the purposed timeline as what must be done.

Find an accountability partner
I really love doing this. This means telling someone what you want to do, and asking them to hold you accountable for doing it. You just might be saying: I don’t have a mentor or someone to do this for me. Well, having an accountability partner isn’t that difficult. Do you have a colleague at work, or even friends you roll with and are genuinely interested in your growth? Then tell them about your goal and when you plan to achieve it. You can even go a step further by committing to pay them a token for any deadline not met.

Be ready to leap
Do you know that we humans are our own greatest cheerleaders and critics? This means that we can be self-motivated when we want to. If you want to achieve your goals, you need to first generate some form of personal energy to be able to pull through with that idea. Do what you want to regardless, stop giving excuses to yourself about the inadequacies you think you have. Just do it!

Today is a good day to start planning to execute that dream of yours. Enough of the talk, you can and should take the required actions now.