Written by: George Thorman, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
A goal is a dream with an action plan. Everyone has dreams, most have goals, but fewer have an action plan. I want you to think of your biggest dream. Maybe you’ve even kept it a secret because it seems so far out of the realm of possibility that you don’t dare even try. Maybe that’s because you didn’t know where or how to start. The good news is that even the most outlandish dreams are accomplishable when you have the right plan. So, how do you make the right plan?
1. Make it SMART
According to Paul J Meyer, goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time Bound (SMART). So what does that all mean?
It means that you should have a clearly defined goal such as, “I want to turn my side hustle of jewelry making into my full-time job.” This is both specific and measurable. To make it achievable, you’ll need a business plan to show you how much jewelry you’d have to sell to replace your current salary and have an action plan for how to get those sales.
A relevant goal is something that feels purposeful to you and the world. When we are thinking beyond our own outcome and acting in service to a greater purpose or group, we are much more likely to achieve our envisioned end state. So you could say, “I want to use my metal smithing talents to create more beauty in the world.”
Time-bound, of course, means to affix the goal to a timeline.
Put it all together and you have, “Within 24 months, I will be earning x amount of money by using my skills to create more beauty in the world.”
2. WOOP
Psychologist Gabrielle Oettingen created an exercise called WOOP that is highly effective for helping people reach their goals.
W is for Wish. What is the dream or big goal that you have for yourself?
O is outcome. Imagine what it will be like to reach this goal. Visualization is key in this process. Be able to see your success clearly. Get into the feeling of having this in your life now.
O is for Obstacle. What stands between you and your goal? Maybe it’s time ‒ management or negative self-talk. Maybe it’s a credential or a financial limitation. Identify what the potential issues are. This is your opportunity to rub your goal up against reality and see how it feels.
P is for Plan. What can you do to get around those obstacles or turn them into opportunities? What resources are available to you? This is also a great time to come up with a SMART Plan. The people most likely to give up in pursuit of a goal were those that expected everything to be smooth sailing. They bailed at the first sign of resistance. They saw any challenge as a sign that their dream wasn’t meant to be.
Meanwhile, people who not only expected challenges, but had a plan to overcome, prevent, or circumvent them were 5x more likely to achieve their goals.
What’s the old adage? “Plan for the worst, hope for the best.”
3. Write It Down
Did you know that writing down your goals makes you 42% more likely to achieve them? Well, that’s just neuroscience. Get yourself a day planner. Write down your goals. Put your action steps on your calendar. It’s that simple.
4. Take Action
Research scientist, Piers Steele, analyzed hundreds of studies on motivation and came up with what he refers to as the Motivation Equation. M = E x V/I x D or Motivation = Expectancy x Value divided by Impulsivity x Delay. Not a math expert or a behavior psychologist? Let me break this down for you.
In order to take action and avoid procrastination, you need to be really motivated. What makes you motivated? Expectancy is about how realistic you feel it is that you will reach your goal. Multiply that by Value, or rather how important something is to you. How strongly do you desire to meet this goal? If you think a goal is highly achievable and it’s very important to you, then your motivation will be high.
However, we still divide those numbers by Impulsivity and Delay. Let’s talk about Delay first. How long will it take you to reach your goal? If it’s way down the road, that’s likely to decrease your motivation. The less delay you have in reaching your goal, the more urgently motivated you are. You wouldn’t start packing for your spring break trip in October, but if it’s an hour before you’re supposed to leave for the airport, you will get your clothes in a bag quickly!
In this day and age, Impulsivity can be one of our greatest foes when it comes to accomplishing our goals. Notifications, emails, calls, texts, social media, this hilarious Tiktok video, the google rabbit hole, your kid needs your attention, your significant other wants to know your weekend plans, you’re hungry, you barely slept and you need all the caffeine so you can focus, your coffee cup is empty, wait, what were you even supposed to be working on? You can’t even remember because we live in a world of distraction. The more things we have vying for our attention, the less likely we are to have a focused time dedicated to reaching our goals. If you have 5 things that are asking for your attention now and your goal is 10 months away, you are much less motivated.
So- You need to know that you can accomplish your goal, it has to be important to you that you reach your goal, you need time to take focused action steps when you don’t have anything else demanding your attention, and you need a goal or at least a step that can be accomplished in the near future. Which leads us right into…
5. Chunk It
If you have a long-term goal, you can reduce the delay by using chunking. By breaking up a big goal into small steps, it can be easier to take the necessary focused action. If you want to become a doctor, that’s a long road with a lot of steps. So start with what you can do now, today. It might be taking an hour each day to study for the MCAT, or it could be attending class and doing the homework, it could be forty minutes of research on residency programs. Whatever it is, wherever you are in the process, make sure you have small, actionable things to do in the direction of your long-term goal every single day. Write them down in your day planner.
What is comes down to is this. Be very clear about what you want, what it takes to get there, and boost your motivation with continual actions. Writing things down, having a plan plus a contingency plan, breaking big goals down into small steps, and creating distraction free time to take those steps will help you bring your dream into reality.
George Thorman, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Have you ever met a woman named George before? No? Then George Thorman has already changed your life. Helping people change their lives wasn't what she set out to do, but after EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) helped her heal severe PTSD she knew she wanted to use it to help others. Since 2011 George has been facilitating personal development through her work as a Thetahealing Master, EFT Practitioner, and Optimize Coach. George's mission is to help people become the best version of themselves. Though she has called many cities and countries home over the years, these days you'll find her in Kansas City, Missouri, USA with her husband, son, and pets.
