How to Use Routines to Achieve Goals

Willpower, motivation, self control - these are words that are bandied about to "help" you achieve your goals. They are good words, but the fact is that no matter how much motivation, willpower and self control you build up, there's only one way to truly reach your goals, surmount a challenge, or stick to New Year's resolutions: Breaking them down into small, actionable steps. and that's breaking your goals down into small actions.

Even more important, to me, is to work on them every single day.

In short: Work towards your goal a little bit every day. Or almost every day.

All the self control and willpower in the world won't help you reach long-term goals unless you have a plan to work on them regularly. That's why using your daily routine to reach your goals is the only sure-fire way to accomplish them.

There are 3 reasons why you should work on your goals daily:

1. What you do regularly is more important than what you do occasionally.

Think about that again: What you do typically is more important than what you do sometimes, but not often. It's the classic case of the rabbit and the turtle. By applying slow, steady focus to something regularly, you have a better chance of accomplishing it, then by applying short bursts of energy irregularly.

Here are some examples:

If your goal is to lose weight and you starve yourself for one day a week and lose 5 pounds, but then go back to your normal eating habits the other 6 days, you're not going to sustain that weight loss. If you eat healthfully 5-6 days a week and then splurge for 1 or 2, you have got a better shot at permanent, maintainable weight loss.
The same can be applied daily. If you eat a healthy, normally portioned breakfast, lunch, and dinner, but then snack all day long between meals it's going to be harder to lose weight. On the other hand, if you eat healthy meals all day long and then have one less-healthy snack you see results.
If you go all out and organize your home in one weekend but then don't lift a finger to declutter a space again until your next marathon organizing weekend, your home will be disorganized most days.
2. You're less likely to burn out.

I've had mornings where I have woken up, gone to work, and have been able to work furiously with a razor-sharp focus on the task at hand for several hours at a time, but that is a an anomaly. Maybe I got a particularly good night's sleep (although I usually sleep pretty well) or a had a little extra shot of oomph in my coffee.

Most days, though, I have to work to maintain energy and focus through the day. If I tried to go full-bore I would flounder, often in the middle of a task, and end up exhausted.

Here's an example of this:

You get home from work and decide you cannot go one more day without organizing your closet. You hectically pull everything out and start trying to decide what to keep and what to toss. Eventually, because it's the end of the day and you have already worked 8 hours at a job and your patience and willpower have been taxed, you get overwhelmed, and end up frustrated with your entire wardrobe on your bedroom floor.

The better option would be to choose one item of clothing (skirts, dresses, denim, button-downs), one dresser drawer, or one quarter of your closet and declutter and organize only those items for the evening. The next night, or the next week, do another. This way you can feel a sense of accomplishment without ending up in tears on a Tuesday at 2 a.m. surrounded by your New Year's Eve cocktail dress collection.

If you work a little bit every day, you're less likely to throw your hands up in frustration.

3. You form the habits you need in order to maintain your accomplishments.

If you choose to spend 30 minutes a day on one space, or a little time each day decluttering a different room, or 10 minutes a few times a day, you're able to reach the long-term goal of home organization while forming the good habits that will help you maintain it.

This is because you'll go on autopilot. Anything you do regularly--good or bad-- eventually becomes a habit, and our brains like habits. Habits are easier to maintain.

Learn to harness the power of your routine for good! You may be surprised by how much you can achieve.

Reach Your Goals by Keeping a Journal

A journal can be a powerful tool for achieving your goals. You can even think of journaling as a self-coaching session. In this post you’ll discover the ten benefits of keeping a journal as a goal-achievement tool.


1. Keeping a journal forces you to commit your goals to writing. When you write down your goals you turn vague desires into well-articulated targets you can clearly see and aim for. You’re taking the first step toward turning the desires in your head into something concrete that exists in the material world.
When you write down your goals you’re laying the first brick, or planting the seed.
2. By setting aside fifteen to twenty minutes a day, every day, at a predetermined time to write about your goals you’re guaranteeing that you’re going to spend at least that amount of time each day thinking about your goals and how you’re going to achieve them. In other words, it’s time that you’re going to spend “tending your garden”.
3. A journal allows you to record your progress. If you’ve encountered setbacks while trying to achieve an important goal you may be feeling discouraged. When you feel like you’re losing your motivation to keep moving forward it’s a good idea to take out your journal and look back at the progress you’ve already made toward the achievement of your goal.
In addition, even if you’ve made several failed attempts at achieving a goal, looking back at what hasn’t worked can be helpful in coming up with new approaches which could work.
4. A journal is evidence of past success. Before you start working on a new goal it’s a good idea to sit back with some of your old journals and read about your past successes. This will help motivate you to get to work on the new goal with a feeling of certainty that—just as you’ve been able to achieve other goals in the past—you’ll be able to achieve it.
5. Having a set time during which you’re going to write about your goals each day keeps you accountable. Nobody wants to sit down and write: “I did absolutely nothing to move closer to the achievement of my goals today. Instead, I wasted time watching TV and playing video games, pursuing other people’s goals, or doing busy work.”
Knowing that at the end of the day you’re going to have to sit down and write about what you did that day to move you closer toward the achievement of your goals is a great motivator to get you to do what you’re supposed to be doing. You can even pretend that your journal is an accountability report which you have to hand in to a supervisor.
6. Writing about your goals helps you to uncover hidden fears that may be holding you back, as well as limiting beliefs. A lot of the time we can’t see how we’re holding ourselves back. Writing can help you to get in touch with a deeper part of yourself and bring stuff to the surface that you didn’t even realize was there.
When you’re writing about your goals you may “hear” yourself saying things such as the following:

•  People with my background can’t achieve a goal like this.
• I just don’t have what it takes.
• If I lose weight, then my friends—who are also struggling with their weight—won’t want to hang out with me anymore.

Once you’ve brought your hidden fears and limiting beliefs to the surface, you’ll be able to deal with them. A journal can help you gain self-awareness and bring your blind spots within your visual range.
7. A lot of the time we know what we want, but we don’t know how we’re going to get it. Your journal can serve as a brainstorming tool for coming up with steps you can take in order to achieve your goals.
The brain loves a challenge. Give yours the following challenge: “In the next twenty minutes come up with a list of 100 things I could do in order to achieve this goal”.
Even if nothing you come up with makes any sense, your brain will continue working on the task while you sleep or do other things. Then, the next time that you sit down to write in your journal it’s likely that you’ll be able to come up with an idea on how to proceed that’s both realistic and actionable.
8. Writing about your goals helps you to identify possible obstacles that you may encounter, and create an action plan on how you’ll deal with those obstacles when they arise. Then, when an obstacle does appear across your path, you won’t be caught off guard. Instead, you’ll know how to deal with it.
9. A journal detailing how you solved a problem that others may be having—or how you achieved a goal that others may want to achieve—can be turned into an eBook which you can give away or sell. Creating a product you can make money from can be another source of motivation to keep you moving toward the achievement of your goals.
10. A journal can help you to keep the ball rolling. The last thing you should do before closing your journal for the day is to give yourself an assignment. That is, identify what you’re going to do the following day in order to move your goal along.

Keeping a journal can be a powerful tool for achieving your goals. Live your best life by setting goals, and then keeping a journal which will help you to achieve those goals.


My favorite quote about Keeping a Journal:



Pedro Proff

How To Develop Self-Discipline

No personal success, achievement, or goal, can be realized without self-discipline. It is singularly the most important attribute needed to achieve any type of personal excellence, athletic excellence, virtuosity in the arts, or otherwise outstanding performance.

Start with baby steps. No process takes place overnight. Just as it takes time to build muscle, so does it take time to develop self-discipline. The more you train and build it, the stronger you become. In exercise, if you try to do too much at once, you could injure yourself and have a setback. Likewise, take it one step at a time in building self-discipline. So, begin by making the decision to go forward and learning what it takes to get there.

Learn what motivates you and what your bad triggers are. You can begin by learning about yourself! Sometimes it is very difficult to fight off urges and cravings, so know the areas where your resistance is low and how to avoid those situations.  If you know you can't resist cake, fries, or other temptations - stay away from them. Do not have them around to lure you in moments of weakness. 

If you also know that putting pressure on yourself does not work for you, then set yourself up in an environment that encourages the building of self-discipline rather than one that sabotages it. Remove the temptations and surround yourself with soothing and encouraging items such as motivating slogan sand pictures of what you want to achieve.

Learn also what energizes and motivates you. Your willpower can go up and down with your energy levels so play energetic music to perk you up, move around, laugh. Train yourself to enjoy what you are doing by being energized. This will make it easier to implement desirable and appropriate behaviors into your routine - which is really what self-discipline is all about. 

Make certain behaviors a routine. Once you have decided what's important to you and which goals to strive for, establish a daily routine that will help you achieve them. For example, if you want to eat healthily or lose weight; resolve to eat several servings of fruits and vegetables each day and exercise for at least half an hour. Make it part of your daily routine and part of your self-discipline building. Likewise, get rid of some of your bad, self-defeating habits, whatever they may be. They can put you in a negative frame of mind and hinder your self-discipline. A poor attitude can also be a bad habit. 

Practice self-denial. Learn to say no to some of your feelings, impulses and urges. Train yourself to do what you know to be right, even if you don't feel like doing it. Skip dessert some evenings. Limit your TV watching. Resist the urge to yell at someone who has irritated you. Stop and think before you act. Think about consequences. When you practice self-restraint it helps you develop the habit of keeping other things under control. 

Engage in sports or activities. Sports are an excellent way to enhance self- discipline. They train you to set goals, focus your mental and emotional energies, become physically fit, and to get along well with others.  Participating in sports provides a situation where you learn to work hard and strive to do your best, which in turn, teaches you to integrate the same the thought processes and disciplines into your everyday life.

Learning to play a musical instrument can be another great way to practice self-discipline. The focus, repetition, and application required in learning to play an instrument is invaluable. Achieving self-discipline in any one area of your life reprograms your mind to choose what is right, rather than what is easy.

Get inspiration from those you admire. Michael Jordan has always maintained that his greatness as a basketball player came as much from his willingness to work hard at his craft, as it did his talent. It was his desire through discipline and focus that made him one of the best basketball players ever. If it worked for him, it could certainly work for the rest of us. 

Visualize the rewards. There is nothing more gratifying than accomplishing your goals. Practice the technique that high achievers and top athletes do. Project yourself in the future. Visualize your desired outcome. Feel how rewarding it is and the countless benefits you will enjoy. Remind yourself what it takes to get there.                                

If we are to be masters of our own destiny, we must develop self-discipline and self-control. By focusing on long-term benefits instead of short-term discomfort, we can encourage ourselves to develop of self-discipline. Ultimately our health and happiness depend on it. 

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