7 Questions to Ask Yourself When You Set Out to Achieve a Goal

Do you want to be sure you won't give up on your goal at the first challenge or setback? Would you like to keep your motivation high and enjoy life while working towards your goal? After you set the goal, whether it is a business goal or it concerns other areas of your life, ask yourself the following questions and answer them honestly. There is no point in lying to yourself because it will turn against your success in the long run.

1. Is your goal related to your life purpose?

Analyse the relationship between your goal and your life purpose. Are they related? Does your goal support the fulfilment of your life purpose? Check if the actions you have to take and the tasks you must perform are aligned with your life purpose. For example, you can contribute to the advancement of your community with your work and business, experience joy and personal growth, deploy your best talents to create something lasting or important to you, your family or your community, earn the necessary money to provide for your family, etc.

The result might provide the necessary means to fulfil your life purpose. This is true when your work is not directly aligned with your life purpose but provides the means and resources to fulfil your purpose outside your professional work. This indirect relationship will also work as long as you acknowledge the relationship between your work or business and your life purpose and regard your work as a means for a higher purpose without constantly having negative emotions and complaining about it. However, it is important to find meaning in your work and sincerely believe, that your services or products represent genuine value to your clients and contribute to their lives.

If your goal is not on purpose, you might have difficulties staying motivated and experiencing joy and satisfaction at work and in your business.

To perform this first step of the goal analysis, you must know your life purpose. If you haven't discovered or established it yet, it is never too late to do that. If you need help in the process book a 30-minute free Clarity call to start this amazing self-discovery journey that will change your life.

2. Will the goal help you to live the life you desire?

By answering this question, you analyse if the goal contributes to turning your vision into reality in at least one area of life. It might be an important long-term goal for one of your areas of life derived from the vision for that area. It could be a milestone, an intermediary goal on the journey towards a long-term goal. A business goal is related to more areas of life than work or business. It will influence your financial situation and the environment you can provide for your family, but it can impact your personal life, relationships and well-being.

If you haven't established your vision yet, you might ask yourself if the goal is important to you, it covers a true desire and contributes to your life. Did you set the goal because you want to achieve it or influenced by the environment, your family, friends, other people, trends, etc.? If you set your goal based on what others think you should achieve and the life you should live or because you want to please someone while giving up your dreams, it is time to decide what you want from life and what kind of life you desire in the future and establish your long-term vision covering all the important areas of life.

3. Are you settling for less than what you wish for?

This question helps you analyse if your goal is bold enough to bring advancement in your life, a breakthrough or important growth. A bold goal that stretches you but doesn't seem like a "mission impossible" will motivate you to learn and grow as a person, develop new skills, enlarge your comfort zone, achieve higher results and be more satisfied. If you let yourself be led by your fears and limiting beliefs and stay in your warm comfort zone, you set small goals that don't bring change and growth into your life, you very likely push away the moment when your vision becomes a reality.

Here are a few supporting questions for your analysis:

• Are you resigned to accepting less than your full share of abundance, love, health and success?
• Are you using your full capacities and stretching yourself to become a better person and have a better life or do you rather play safe and small?
• How often do you step out of your comfort zone?
• Will you regret having played safe?

4. How will you feel when you work toward and achieve your goal?

If your goals already satisfy the first three conditions, it is time to look at the feelings you might experience on the journey towards your goal and when you achieve it.

What are the feelings you envisioned in your vision? Will you be able to experience those feelings when you accomplish your goal? Will it help you to get closer or live the desired life? Will it bring you joy, satisfaction and fulfilment? Dive into the thrill of the feeling of living your dream life. Describe it in detail, and use your senses to create a vivid picture of your future joy. Visualise it every day to keep your motivation high.

A fully lived and happy life means that you not only enjoy achieving your goals but also the journey that leads to them. Look at the most important tasks and actions you plan to take to achieve your goal. Do you enjoy performing those tasks? Will they stretch you to grow and improve your skills or acquire new skills? Will they bring you satisfaction and fulfilment? Of course, there are always tasks that you might not enjoy. Those tasks can be delegated or outsourced whether they are business tasks or regard other areas of life. To experience joy and satisfaction aim to have at least 70% of tasks you enjoy performing. For the rest, find solutions to be performed by others, or shift your attitude toward those tasks.

5. What steps can you take today toward your dream?

Make a plan and start taking action. Do not wait until you developed a perfect plan for your entire journey. Set your milestones and make a detailed plan for the first week or months. Then take action. Do not wait until the time is perfect. It will never be. The same is true about the resources. There will always be something missing, something not as it should be, some unfavourable circumstances, etc. Start taking action from where you are and with what you have. Everything else is procrastination and a sign of having internal blocks related to that goal. Take action, watch out for the opportunities and reach out for support on the way.

6. What could stop you from achieving your goal?

Do you believe that you can achieve your goal? How do you talk to others about it? What do you say to yourself? When your inner dialogue is negative and you use negative words and expressions to talk about your goal, the journey toward it and your abilities to achieve it, you can be sure that you have fears and limiting beliefs in action. Discover, dissolve or clear them, and replace your limiting beliefs with empowering ones. Do this while taking action toward your goal. Acknowledging your small positive results, helps you reinforce your new beliefs.

7. Is your goal "ecological"?

A goal is "ecological" when it doesn't go against your values, hurt your relationships and your environment, or take away important benefits of your present life. If you perceive any of these, you'll stop yourself from achieving your goal. The negative effect doesn't have to be real; your perception and beliefs that something negative will happen are enough to stop you.

Is there a contradiction between your goal and the actions you have to take to achieve it, and your core values? In case of a contradiction, values at the subconscious level can act as internal blocks.

Do you think that achieving your goal or the actions to achieve it will hurt your relationships or negatively impact important elements of your environment? Any belief of this nature will act as an internal block and make it difficult to take consistent action toward your goal.

Are there any evident or hidden advantages of the present situation you might lose when you achieve your goal? It might sound crazy but sometimes even a negative situation can have advantages we appreciate and are afraid to lose if we start changing that situation. Many times, these advantages act at a subconscious level. Discover these hidden benefits of the present situation and figure out how you may keep them in the future or replace them with better ones. Sometimes these benefits are not real. They represent compensation for something important missing from our lives, especially at the emotional level.

If you have not created your strategy yet or are stuck in achieving an important business or work-related goal book a 30-minute free Discovery Call to find out how I can help you create your personal strategy, integrate your business strategy into it or uncover and dissolve your internal blocks.