Are you ready to achieve your “critical” goals?  “Critical” goals are goals that are perfectly aligned with your life’s purpose.  The achievement of a “critical” goal is life-changing.  Failure to achieve a “critical” goal renders the achievement of-all-other-goals inconsequential.

Some examples of “critical” goals include:

- Being Able to Make a Living Doing What You Love
- Getting to Your Ideal Weight
- Writing a Best-Selling Book
- Raising Amazing Kids

If you’re looking to achieve a “critical” goal, then I wrote this article for you.  I want the readers of this site to get “results” in their life, because you can’t argue with results.

Let’s talk about “results” for a second:  Results don’t come from luck, timing, or from who you know; results come from the proper execution of a great strategy (or plan).

Your results will always be directly proportional to your ability to execute your strategy.  Put it another way:  Your Results = Your Strategy x The Execution of Your Strategy

If you’re not getting the results you seek, it’s because you either have a “bad” strategy, or you’re not executing the strategy properly.  That’s it, so let’s talk about how we develop a strategy and achieve our “critical” goals.

Below I’ve listed the 4 steps required to achieve your “critical” goals:

 Step 1: Determine Your Goal and Commit to Achieve it by a Specific Day

Let’s say you desire to build a beautiful stonewall in your back yard (let’s assume this is your life’s mission and your critical goal).

After much contemplation you decide to build the wall “twenty feet high” consisting of 3,000 beautiful stones.  You commit to complete the wall one year from today.

Step 2: Develop a Simple Strategy that Focuses on Producing Measurable Results

You could spend your days learning about stones, or discussing stonewalls with friends, but those tasks will not assist you in building your wall.  To build your wall  you need to perfectly lay 10 stones a day (for one year).

The main thing is always to keep the main thing, the main thing.  I often talk to people who say they want success, but instead of focusing on the critical task that guarantee success, they spend their life doing busy work: going to meetings, checking e-mails, etc.  Don’t get side-tracked or derailed by attractions and distractions, stay focused on the tasks that produces results.

The “80/20 Rule” suggests that 20 percent of your activities are responsible for 80 percent of your results.  Given this I recommend that you dedicate your time to performing task that produce tangible and measurable results. Focus on producing results that are directly correlated to the achievement of your “critical” goal.  Stay committed to those tasks.

Focus all of your efforts on the 1-3 tasks that produce results, schedule them daily, and complete them at your earliest availability each day.

In our example, perfectly laying a stone represents a measurable output that will certainly take you closer to you goal…

This seems like such simple advice, but you would be surprised at the number of people who say they want success, however, they spend their time doing busy work that produces “zero” results.  It’s almost as if they’re scared to succeed, they choose to postpone their success into some theoretical nebulous time in the future by selecting tasks which take them further away from success.

A simple strategy is always best.  If you’re going to build a beautiful stone wall, you must first develop a “fool” proof strategy for building the wall.

A good strategy will never rush you; however, it will demand the very best from you.

Your Simple Strategy for Building the Wall

Your Strategy = Spend 2 hours a day, six days a week, laying 10 stones as perfectly as possible.

You could probably rush and lay 20 stones a day; however you want to build a beautiful wall, not a “mess.”  Placing ten stones, six days a week, will give you enough time to finish your wall in one year.

Step 3: Follow the Strategy at All Cost

When it starts raining, you must remain focused on your strategy, when times get tough, you must remain focused on your strategy.  Keep building your wall, don’t let anything stop you.  You should focus on your strategy to the exclusion of everything else.

Just as sure as you’re reading these words right now, there will be numerous opportunities to abandon your strategy.  However, you must remain focused.

You must work the strategy day-in and day-out.  “The strategy works, when you work the strategy.”  Don’t let miscellaneous activities, busy work, errands, or anything else distract you from fulfilling your mission.

Step 4: Keep Score

When you’re building your stonewall, you need to keep a “scoreboard” that measures your progress towards your goal of laying 60 stones a week.  Let others know of your scoreboard and your plans, this pressure will help keep you on track.

People play differently when things are being scored.  My wife and I sometimes play Tennis, and let me tell you, how we play the game changes significantly when we decide to keep score.

Everything changes when there’s a scoreboard!  You work harder, smarter, and faster, when your results are being publicly measured.

If you keep a scoreboard, in combination with the other three steps, you will make progress.

In Closing

When Gandhi was asked how to get to Mount Olympus, he said take steps in the direction of Mount Olympus everyday, and you will get there.  If you take steps in the direction of your dream everyday, you will get there. So “stay encouraged,” it’s just a matter of time.  Thank you for reading.

Update: You don’t want to miss the next article, it’s an amazing interview that I did with author Farouk Radwan.  I asked some great questions about success, family, balance, achieving your dreams, breaking bad habits and more. Farouk gave some very insightful answers that I think you’ll certainly enjoy.

Thank you for reading mrselfdevelopment.com where every article expands your mind, increases your faith, and changes your life.

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