Friday, March 1, 2013

Study Skills - How To Easily Achieve Your Goals

By Lachlan Haynes


Question without notice: What and why are you trying to accomplish in your life? Just think about it for a moment. What and why. This is a really key question for all of us. The first step in achieving an ambition is establishing what the ambition is and also understanding why you want to achieve it. Often we know what we want to achieve (like get better grades - especially in Math - or lose some weight) but we don't have the right reason to back it up. So, what is your goal and why do you want to achieve it?

Once you have created a goal you want to achieve and understand you can move to the next level. The next level asks you to ponder the following questions: who do you need to become in order to achieve your goals? What do you need to do in order to achieve your goals? Are you being brutally honest about whether you are working diligently towards your goal or are you really just hoping that by some miracle your goal will be achieved?

Let's look at this another way. If you take no action each day how will your goal be achieved? If you don't take any steps to improve yourself, how will your goal be achieved? Can you goal happen by you continuing exactly the way you are? If not, what are you going to do about it? What improvements do you need to make?

People love events but people don't like processes. Unfortunately, the process is the most important part of achieving any goal. Think about it. We love to see the pounds just melting away (the event), but we don't like to eat healthily and exercise strenuously each day (the process). We love to receive a great score on a test (the event), but we don't like all the homework and study that is required to make it happen (the process). As I said, people love events but people don't like processes.

The same goes for our education. We all want to be smart and learned (I hope!) But going through each grade and passing each test and handing in each assignment and doing all our homework and getting good grades is really hard work.

However, for those of us who make a choice to go through the process, the events are extra sweet. A top grade, getting into College, winning the Super Bowl, or running a four minute mile are all events that happened because the person made a decision and went through the process.

This is important when we consider setting our goals and seeking to achieve them. Obviously, if the event itself is the only reason we setting the goal then it makes sense that we are going to struggle through the process required to realize the goal. That's just common sense isn't it?

So, if you are going to set a goal, you really need to understand what process you are going to have to go through to achieve it and make sure you are committed to it. The event is secondary; the process is what you are really committing yourself to. You must ask yourself, "What actions will I have to take every day to go through the process? Who will I need to be to go through the process?" If you can't answer that, you won't be able to achieve the goal you have set.

Goals don't just happen. They are clearly defined and then deliberately worked towards. You create an event (an A+ in Maths) and then you have to go through the process to get there. Focus on the process and the event will happen. Focus on the event (like everyone wants to) and nothing will happen. The choice is yours!




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