Struggling to Keep Your Goals

Many people use the start of a new year to set new goals for themselves. It's great to have goals, dreams and aspirations to reach for. Most people begin with great intentions of keeping and realizing the desires that they have set out for themselves but somewhere along the way those goals and good intentions become a struggle and get lost on the journey of life.  

It takes great discipline to achieve and reach your goals. Focusing on the results that you really want to see is what will get you there. Discipline is not easy but we all know nothing good comes easy. Whether your goal is to start a new business, go on a trip, save money for a new vehicle, lose weight whatever it is, it takes discipline. 

Many of us get lost because we don't define our reason for reaching our goals. It's great to say that I want to exercise and go to the gym 4 days a week but without a solid reason to back up why you want to achieve this goal you'll likely find excuses to skip your workouts, cut them short or end up not going at all.  Why do you want to exercise regularly perhaps it's because you need to keep yourself in better shape, lose weight or increase your muscle strength. Define your goal and write down your reasons to help you stay on track. Be clear about what you want. 

Perhaps one of your goals is to read 6 books on leadership or business this year. Is it just to say you've read 6 books or is it because you want to create your own business in the coming year or to increase your knowledge to become a more effective leader at your current job. Continual learning takes focus but this is how successful people achieve their goals. It takes training yourself and disciplining yourself everyday. 

Life is busy and keeping your goals moving forward may be a struggle. Balancing life, work, family while maintaining health and fitness is a challenge. Something I recently heard was to not let your emotions or emotional state be the driver in your decision to keep working your goals. Realizing it's a struggle for everyone at times. I mean who wants to get up at 6am to go to the gym (okay maybe a real morning person) or to get there after a long day of work, no one but truly this is where the discipline and clarity of your goals comes in. Don't let your emotions be what ruins your goals and outcomes.  I can struggle with this too, but I choose to hit the alarm off and get out of bed before my emotions get a chance to decide for me. If I want to achieve my goal I have to do it whether I want to or not. 

You can be a goal setter and be disciplined through training yourself for whatever it is you desire to do.