We all make and set goals for the New Year, but how many of those goals do we really keep? The problem isn’t necessarily that we’re being overly ambitious. The problem is we don’t set our goals properly. Over the years, I’ve tried many ways of achieving my goals and have come with some key elements to setting goals and achieving them.

Make Them Measurable

Know where you started. It’s always hard to stay on track when you don’t know how far you’ve really gone. Keep track of success and failure rates. If something stopped you from achieving your goal, figure out why. Did you just get lazy or was it something that was out of your control?

Quantify

Don’t just say you want more clients; say how many more you want. This will help you know how much further till you reach you goal. If you’re planning on doing something multiple times, say how many times you want to repeat it. Don’t be general. State when you want to achieve your goal by.

Be Accountable

This goes without saying. If you’re not honest about achieving your goals, you won’t get very far. I find that being accountable to someone is always a great motivator to keep going.

Don’t Stretch Too Far

Remember you only have a limited time to achieve your goals, if you’re over ambitious, you’ll get worn out or just loose focus. You’ll stretch yourself too thin and risk not achieving any of your goals. Life always throws unexpected events into our lives, so make sure there is room in your schedule for those times.

Break Them Down

If you’re goal is to build an entire brand identity including website and all, you might be at it for months or even years before you get it just right. That’s not very encouraging if you ask me, but if you begin to break things down into more achievable bite-sized tasks, things get a bit more motivating. Breaking things down might give you a long list of things to do, but when each of those things only takes a few minutes, it becomes more encourage and really hard to stop working. Trust me, it’s fun crossing things off of your to-do list.

Keep It On Your Mind

A lot of people make goals, but they forget about them or they get distracted by other things. Write your goals down and put the list on your desk. Put it somewhere you can always see it. Put it on your phone, on your calendar, on your computer wallpaper, whatever you have to do to stay focused.

Be Motivated

Make a plan to treat yourself when you achieve your goal. Maybe a nice dinner, vacation, a new computer or phone, whatever it is you feel will really motivate you. Just make sure you follow through with it. Nobody likes being cheated, so why do it to yourself?

It isn’t hard to achieve goals when you set them properly. This list of things isn’t just for New Year’s resolutions. You can apply it to anything, so go at it. Make that list of things you want to accomplish and start crossing them off.