These scientifically proven techniques will help you make the new year more productive than the previous one.
45% of people set optimistic goals for the future at the end of the year. But 25% of them quit the idea with goal setting during the first week after winter holidays. And only 8% of them reach their goals. This article is the quintessence of experience gained by those achievers.
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1. Choose Right Goals
First, make sure that the goal is yours, and not of your parents, your partner or yourself 10 years ago. Then check if the way is connected to activities that make you glad. If you like making money, you won’t wake up in the morning and yell: “Oh my God, I have to move my billions again. Is this going to end?!”
Those who like physical activities don’t have to push themselves to the gym. They gain the required shape much faster than those who train according to the same program carrying a sincere, pure hate about PT.
Set only one goal for every field of your life. For instance, the goal to gain excellent grades can compete with the goal of starting a business. The best way is to have two big goals at a time. That is how you don’t concentrate on a single one too much, and won’t spray your energy and efforts for multiple targets.
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2. Concentrate on a Process and Not on Results
Do you know why most dreams never bring any results? The problem is that they are oriented on a result only. One deal is if you want to be a rock star standing on the stage before millions of fans, and having the will to make your fingers bleed because of everyday guitar playing practice is a completely another deal.
Researches show that people have more chances to reach their goals if they are concentrated on a process, not on the result.
State the goal as a process.
Not “to publish a bestseller”, but “to write 1000 words daily”. Not “to lose 30 lbs.”, but “to train three times a week and to count calories”. That will give its effect, as you are going to need a detailed plan on your way to the goal. Plus to this, these actions will make you concentrate and move towards the goal gradually instead of observing the wanted goal from afar and thinking how to approach it.
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3. Mobilize Your Subconscious Resources
You can set the goal of earning $ 10000 monthly as many times as you want. If there is a belief about “big money means big problems” or “I am not worth big money”, your efforts are going to be wasted in vain.
Before starting to climb up the mountain, check if you think yourself to be worth standing on its summit.
It won’t be cool if you stop in the middle of the process and decide this mountain to be for climbers from richer families.
Your chances to reach the goal can increase suddenly if you replace controversial beliefs with assisting ones. Write down all your fears about the goal and then put an opposite statement for each of them.
For instance: “I’ve got average marks” – “I work on improving my grades every day”. This formula has to touch you only: your teachers don’t know they’ve got to reward you because of your heavy tries and hard work.
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4. Have Plans for Every Day
Create a task-list for the upcoming day in the evening. This is how you can get into the process in the morning at once, without thinking about where to start while looking through the Instagram newsletter.
Try looking on every regular task from the viewpoint of goal achievement. For instance, when you bring your suit to a dry cleaner, think about how it can help you make impression onto your teachers and feel confident.
Structure your task list in the way for your laziness and procrastination to work for you. Put the most scary tasks to the top of the list. And add simple but important ones in the end. This is how you can go in for completing secondary goals while postponing primary ones. And you’ll move to your goal, too.
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5. Choose Priorities According to Biorhythms
If you are active in the morning, then complete main tasks during that time. Leave less effort-taking tasks for the evening: email responses, shopping, and communication. If you are an “owl” and the peak of your activity occurs in the evening and night, then do the most important job during that time. And in the morning, when you can’t do a thing, check your emails and do not do that complicated routine tasks.
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6. Use the Paper Clip Strategy
A story of a young broker named Trent Dyrsmid made the whole world use this trick.
Dyrsmid employed to a provincial bank having no job experience at his 23. Soon, his income reached 75 000 dollars per year. He put two glasses on his table every morning. One was empty, and another one contained the set of 120 paper clips. Every time he made a call, he took a clip from the full glass and put it to the empty one. That was the whole technique. 120 calls per day, one paper clip at a time.
Visualize your progress!
Do you want to do 100 pushups every day? Take 100 clips and divide them to 10 sets. Do 10 pushups 10 times a day and put clips from one glass to another.
Do you need to send 25 emails every day? Put a clip to a target glass every time you push the “Send” button.
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7. Make Summaries
Planning is a waste of time if you don’t summarize your job results. Outline your daily events. Many successful people do that.
Do not try doing that in mind, it won’t have any effect. Summarize your day in written form. That’s very useful to write down 5 achievements and 5 joys of your past day. Let it be a list of your steps towards the goal you made that day, even the smallest ones. And write about 5 things which made you smile or get inspired.
Positive emotions on your way to goals are serious motivators. When reading these notes once again you’ll see that a step-by-step approaching the goal brings much satisfaction. That can help you gain additional energy if your enthusiasm falls down for some reason. Additionally, the method allows summarizing a week or a month much faster.
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8. Create a Ritual
You can spend best years of your life expecting your inspiration to come, especially if your goal is not connected with a matter of survival. Save time: teach your body to enter the working condition with the help of a ritual. Create a set of motivating actions which you are going to complete before starting a job.
It does not matter if you learn economics or have to write a code. Listen to a certain song or cook a special meal every time before you sit to the desk. Your organism is going to remember the ritual and make it become a command for switching the concentration on.
This technique was used by many outstanding personalities. Victor Hugo, Leo Tolstoy, Friedrich Schiller and other writers had their own rituals helping them to start working. Find the ritual that will be able to help personally you.
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9. Rest in Time
Many people believe it is possible to reach great goals only through titanic efforts. They think that any goal achievement requires them to work hard, to sleep less, to eat less and to hurt their nerves.
They’re wrong. Super-effort is fine only when you need fast results here and now. But it is impossible to reach big results fast, and super-tension that lasts over time always leads to emotional and physical exhaustion and depression.
You don’t need super-efforts to reach super-goals. You need well-distributed, everyday efforts to do that.
It is not the most difficult thing to make yourself do something when you don’t want to. The most difficult thing is to make yourself stop when everything is fine, when you are in a “working flow.” Direct all your willpower to stop in time. Otherwise, you’ll pay twice when your organism gets overtired.
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10. Form Useful Environment
Find people who believe in you, and not say skeptically that you do useless things. Life is too short for you to waste it for haters and home critics. It is good if your close people move towards their goals on their own. That will serve as an additional motivation for you.
If you get stunned during the way, find a person moving to the similar goal. Help him or her to reach it. The possibility to change a viewpoint about the problem will have a great influence onto your productivity.
Review your social circle. Take a look at people who are 5-10 years elder than you, especially those who you see at least once in a week: most probably, that is your future. Are you okay with that?
Your previous social circle will get changed on your way to new goals, that’s normal. Just move forward, your adherents wait for you there.
