What everyone should know about achieving goals?

Does achieving goals seem like finding a specific star in the sky or a ticket to an endless merry go-round that just spins, round and round?  Hi, My name is John C. Morley; AKA The Training Doctor, and if you ever seemed to be at the  same spot you started or further behind; then I think this article will present some helpful thoughts.            

Projects, goals and large tasks always seem to be great at the start; however many times people fall short of achieving them for many reasons. In this particular article I would like to address a useful technique which I use quite frequently and recommend to many others to use. 

Well, (IEBDVAC) is an acronym for a system I developed and you can easily remember this by the following phrase: (In Every Dandy Beautiful Vacation Actions Count).  Now; the phrase itself is a great tool to help you remember this system when you need to use it.

First, make sure you have plenty of paper or are open to a word-processing program and are ready to type.  The “I” stands for Identify; thus we want to write out in as much detail as possible to convey exactly what we are trying to achieve.  Also, in this step be sure to involve as many of your senses and be as detailed as possible.  Now, identify all of the resources you have and all those that you need to acquire to complete this project, i.e.:  money, supplies, skill sets, people, etc.

Did you know that most goals fail because the person who is trying to achieve them; doesn’t have a clear enough picture about what they want.  If you wanted tickets to the next super bowl or Olympics would you just show up and hope you will get a good seat.  No;  if you got there, they may be sold out or the only tickets left  may be for the worst seats in the arena  Thus; you have a plan to go to the event, research travel, call up the box office and purchase tickets, purchase airline and hotel accommodations to insure you get to your goal.  If you didn’t have a plan; you would probably learn that you didn’t get what you wanted and the next time you would realize you have to plan accordingly.

After you have carefully depicted you goal on paper and it seems so real, then you are ready to proceed to the next step which is marked by “E” and stands for establish time line for the project.  So many people I talk with each day tell me that they want to achieve something, have a clear picture of it but don’t bother to set a time frame to achieve it.  Coming up with a reasonable time table to establish you goal is critical because it is only then that your mind understands that some action is going to need to happen and quite consistently.  When people choose to not set time frames; they cause their mind to not take them seriously and thus they just become more disappointed because they never achieve their goals.

People that often are very motivated at first and very organized fail to achieve complicated or grand goals for a simple reason; they can’t see how to break their plan into small manageable sub-goals.  This step is noted by the letter “B” and it stands for Break your goals into sub- goals.  For example if you had a project and you were never able to move forward or kept going in a loop on one part then it is clear that you are only focusing on the end result and not the steps to get there.  One would break their project, large task or goal into small tasks which have their own separate purpose. 

Now that you have your goal, project or large task into small tasks you are able to see easily what you can do with your own resources and skills and those that you need to have completed by others.  We call this next phase “D” Delegation or assigning mini-tasks or sub-goals to those who have the resources or skill sets necessary for that particular sub-goal.  It is very important that you not only make it clear what the task is for each person/group but also employ a reliable method for communicating consistently:  e-mail, phone, in-person meetings, web conferences, etc.

Since you have all the resources necessary to complete your project; it is now time to start working consistently and to have a tracking method to ensure that sub-goals are being completed in a timely fashion.  The next phase is called “V” Verify; this is where you take the end result of each sub-goal and make sure that it has successfully been fulfilled.             

After the verification step you now need to take the end result whether that be a finished product or piece of knowledge returned and assemble them into the proper fashion to deliver your end result and thus completing your goal.  The method I described here can be used for one person or an entire team and will become second nature once you see the speed and quality of its results. When any main goal is achieved either personally or corporately it’s important to celebrate your accomplishments immediately.  This is also important because it helps prime the pump and shows your mind you are serious about what you want and that you do take action and delver.  The more your body sees that you work with what you are given the more you turn the challenges and road lemons into lemonade.  What you will find is that the more you practice; the quicker and easier you will achieve future goals. Thus in summary if you want to achieve a goal, remember to use the process:  (In Every Beautiful Dandy Vacation Actions Count):  Identify your goal clearly and the resources needed., Establish time lines for goals/sub-goals, Break Goal into sub-goals, Delegate sub-goals, Verify Sub-goal Completion and remember to celebrate your achievements. 

Lastly, people ask me all the time; John, but I don’t need resources or delegation when it’s just me setting a goal, right?  Well, actually it’s even more important because as individuals we may need to employ or get another resource to achieve our goals.  Many times people attempting to reach a goal will never past their first discovery of I don’t know how to do that and thus their goal fails. Every journey started with a first step but no journey was ever possible with one person alone.  In short; when you need resources make smart decisions to acquire them and review your options when it comes to educating yourself with more knowledge to add to your skill set. If you choose to use this system and see your goal as a series of small tasks; then anything is truly possible.

Wamrest, regards

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