The prophets of doom will tell you that a goal system doesn’t work. They will tell you they tried and tried to achieve their goals but always fail. So who are the prophets of doom? Anybody and anyone who doesn’t truly follow a goal oriented system.

A goal can be anything form losing weight, to a better relationship with your. In fact you achieve goals all the time and probably don’t even know it. For instance, tonight you are going to go to bed. That is a goal. Sure its easy and you are going to fall asleep eventually, but the fact is the end goal is going to bed and the steps along the way to get there are probably, take a shower, brush your teeth, turn the heat/ac up or down until finally you lay down in bed and pull the covers over you. That in essence are the steps you follow to get to the end goal of falling asleep in bed.

But here is the difference between the example above and let’s say a goal to lose weight. The example above is easy and you do it everyday. In fact you probably have done it your whole life and it has now just become routine.

Think of your goals as an apple tree. The apples closer to where you can reach them without a ladder are probably not the nicest or tastiest. You see anyone can reach those apples. In other words it doesn’t take much effort to get those apples closest to you. On the other hand the apples at the top are probably a lot better. They get direct sunlight, they are harder to reach so not everybody is touching them and the list goes on and on.

Your easy goals, such as the example of sleep, are those apples at the bottom. The harder ones, such as losing weight, are at the top. And just like those apples at the top, there is something between you and those harder goals, otherwise you would already be there. In the case of the apples, that "something" is height. You get the picture.

Let me start by saying that a goal must be measureable. In other words, "I want to make a lot of money", is not a measureable goal. "I want to make a million dollars by the end of 5 years", is a measureable goal. If you can’t measure it how can you write the steps to achieve it?

Also your goal must have an end date. "I want to lose 10 pounds", although a measureable number, by when do you want to lose those 10 pounds? One week, one year, ten years? You need to put a length of time to achieve that goal. It can be lofty or conservative, but I recommend going for something in the middle. This way you can set the bar high enough to be out of reach, but not too high to where you will give up.

So here is how you set the goal, and I will use weight loss as an example, but again the goal could be anything you want to achieve. Let’s say you want to lose 20 pounds. Ok so right now your goal is to lose twenty pounds. Next set a time frame next to that twenty pounds. By when do you need to lose this weight? So we’ll say summer (June 21st) is 20 weeks away and you would really like to have that weight off by that day. Great! So the goal is to lose 20 pounds by June 21st which is 20 weeks away.

As you can see the math is simple, you need to lose one pound per week over the next twenty weeks. Now that you have the end written down it doesn’t seem so scary does it? Before I continue I must mention that you should invest in a notebook, day planner or some type of instrument that you can write on or record your goals and your steps you must follow to achieve those goals. Studies have shown when people write down their goals and track them in a daily diary or day planner the success of achieving them increases by up to 70%. So get that day planner and write them down.

With the end goal of losing 20 pounds in 20 weeks written down in our day planner, we now need to write down the steps to get there. Well we know we need to eat healthy and we need to exercise. If you do not know much about these areas, your first step could be "to go and get a physical from the doctor". Your second step could be "read articles or books on proper nutrition and learn what I must eat and when I should eat it". The third step could be, "go down to the local gym and register". Step 4, "hire a personal trainer to set up my workout routine for the next 20 weeks". You want to write each step down and you want each step to be as detailed as possible and every step must have a date to get completed by.

You might be saying, "Do I really have to write down ‘go the gym and perform upper body workout’?" Yes you do. By writing down in full detail every step it takes to get to the end goal, you are committing yourself to achieving this goal. When you open up your daily planner to see what needs to get done today it will read "go to the gym and perform upper body workout" or something like that, you know that needs to get done and in order to achieve your goal you have to complete that step. When you get back from the gym, you check that off.

As you can see by the steps above, each step gets you closer to the end goal. As you complete each step, you need check them off to give yourself a visual account of what has been completed. The more detail you provide in each step combined with writing your goals and steps down, your chances of achieving them increase tremendously.

If done properly following the methods I have provided above, a goal should take you anywhere from 5 to 10 hours to write out completely. Just remember, the more detail you provide in the steps to get there the more likely you will reach it.