Want to be a better person? Learn why training yourself to give your goals deadlines is a must

Most people know that a goal is good when it has a deadline, but many never bother giving their goals deadlines.

They don’t like the pressure that comes with deadlines. They’d rather just keep working on their goal and pray that things work for the best.

This pattern keeps repeating itself in the lives of so many people.

So long as things work and things are not that bad, they never take the step to give each goal a deadline and do their best to beat it.

We have people who want to be authors. They want to share their knowledge, to share their experiences and much more. They may even have, in their list of top things to do, something like write a book on topic X or Y.

Another goal many people usually set is save more money this year or month. That is it.

Goals like this become so hard to actually implement and achieve simply because the deadlines (or lack thereof) gives you room to direct the focus that could be solely dedicated to the attainment of one goal to something else less important, undermining the real reason why you set a goal in the first place.

Actually, most people have a hard time keeping their focus on ‘big goals’ and working persistently on them.

That’s why you need to –

– do one thing most people don’t give much attention to

1. Know what it is you want to attain. Be clear about your goal. Have very good reasons why you should spend your energy towards its attainment.
2. Now do what most people do. Get excited about your goal and think about all the good things you’ll get when you finally achieve it.
3. Then quickly start paying attention to what some dread: preparing for the hard work and finding the resources you’ll need to reach achievement.
4. Give your goal (for example: ‘Write to the last chapter, my book Title.’) a deadline you think you won’t miss. Some think that a year is enough, so they might add a goal like this in their New Year resolution or when they celebrate their birthday – to write a book in one year.
5. Don’t stop at #4 or simply start researching and writing your book. Here’s where you take your time to make sure that the goal you’ve spread over the year will be felt more every single day of your life, at least before the deadline comes knocking. Remember that it is hard to do this, if you stop at #4.
6. A book takes several things and a lot of time to put together, and you have a year to figure it all out and have your first draft ready. If you stop at #4 above, you’ll have a lot of excuses not to sit down and work on your book.

It is time to be clear about everything you need to do to get your first draft. That includes research (from looking for definitions, reference material, stats, images to works of authors who have written similar books,), an outline, listing everything you want to cover in your book and grouping them under chapters and sub-chapters. This way, it becomes easier to know the amount of work that is expected of you over the year.

7. When you are done with #6, it is time to spread the work over months, weeks and then days. This way, you’ll be much closer to your book. The temptation to flee the hard work and keep daydreaming about the joys that’ll come when your first draft is finished – and the year is over – won’t be so strong.

You shall have moved from, I want to write to the last chapter, my book Title.’ To something like, ‘Finish looking for quotes to use at the beginning of every chapter today.’ Or ‘Research similar books on Amazon.com on 24th July 2016’

See how this (deadlines) brings your work (goals) closer to you compared to when you just think about your big book project and the whole year you have to write it?

This helps you give your draft presence in your life every single day – and you know what happens with repetition? Getting back to work on the draft gets easier as days turn into weeks and weeks turn into months.

The power is in taking big goals, breaking them down into smaller pieces, tagging each piece with a realistic deadline and doing your best (even if you don’t like the work) to see that every deadline, finds you ready for the next piece.

You should remember at all times that smaller pieces are what makes the big goals what they are.

Goals build on each other, and every piece that you work on promptly, leaves you more room to experience new challenges – to achieve more of what really matters to you as a person.

Even when you are building a house, you can’t just hang bricks in the air (even if you’re able to do this) and expect that at the end of it all your goal of a multi-storey building, will no longer be something just in your head, but something people can actually see, touch, even lease.

What does all this have to do with being a better person?

The purpose of this post is to show you a better way to think about all the numerous goals you have.

If you have read everything here and promise to give your goals deadlines, you’re soon going to:

• realize how much you put more of your time into better use
• realize how much you enjoy the process that comes with working on every goal you have, and three,
• realize that it is easier to reach achievement faster than you used to.

In life, we also have smaller goals that fit into a bigger picture – like your life’s purpose. When you look at the example of the book Title above, it may look like a very big goal.

But when you put it side by side with one of your major goals, say, living your life’s purpose, it looks different. It is small. Writing the book now looks like a small piece within a big goal – becoming a better person.

If your goal is to reduce the amount of time you spend watching TV every single day by 30 minutes or 1 hour, that may be a smaller piece in a big goal.

When one goal is delayed, there might be several other goals that are put on halt. When this happens, you could easily find yourself entertaining feelings of worthlessness and inadequacy.

What do you do now that you know your goals have influence on each other?

Goals are connected, like pieces of puzzle – or pizza.

Whether we achieve them or not, they have a direct impact on our lives, self-worth and more.

If you have not been looking at goals like this before, this is the best time to start.

If you have known this for a long time but you are not respecting the deadlines you give to your goals, this is the second best time to start doing things in a better way.

There’s always another chance to learn and to start doing things the hard way. Here’s one.

While at it, find people pursuing similar goals and those who have achieved what you are still struggling with to learn from each other, encourage each other and grow together.

[read recent articles on Niabusiness.com to help you be a better person]