How to Effectively Track and Accomplish Your Goals
One of the most common reasons that people don’t get to accomplish their goals is that we tend to get distracted, and we lose track of important things that need to be done consistently in order to move forward towards our goals. Maybe you have set a perfectly achievable goal and planned every detailed step, but without effectively tracking your goal and knowing your progress, most certainly you will get discouraged when the first obstacle gets in the way and end up giving up on your goal eventually.
To really achieve any goal worthwhile, we need to discipline ourselves to keep it on track until it’s accomplished. There are several ways to effectively track your goals.
1. Review your goals regularly, preferably daily
Keep yourself constantly reminded of your goals by reviewing them at a specific time each day. It can be in the morning, first thing after you get out of the bed. It can be at night just before you go to sleep. Write down all your goals in a notebook, or store them in a computer software. When you review them, envision how accomplishing that goal will make you feel. Check your current progress, understand what you did to move it forward, find out what else you still need to do. By doing this regularly, you train your mind to become alert to things that are related to your goals, and gradually your mind will automatically guide you to do whatever needed to achieve them.
2. Break down a goal into actionable steps
Many people tend to easily get overwhelmed by all the things they need to do to accomplish a goal. The trick is to break down a bigger goal into smaller actionable steps. For example, say your goal is to start your own business. There are many things you will need to do. But before spending too much time on thinking about how difficult or time consuming they will be, first break things down a bit. For instance, obviously first few steps towards your goal could be: decide an overall direction or business model, find a right product/service to sell, list requirements to make this product/service work, etc. If any of these steps still looks big, break it down further. Once you break it down to doable steps, all you need to focus on is just one small step. As long as you keep doing these small steps, the completion of the goal will take care of itself.
3. Break down a goal into quantifiable results
For some goals, it may not be easy to know what exactly the steps are to get started. How are you still able to keep track of your progress? One method is to find a measurable aspect of your goal, and write it down as a number. For example, your goal could be to lose weight, then the number is your body weight. If you want to finish reading or studying a book, the number is the number of pages to read. If your goal is to save money for a dream vocation, the number is the amount of money you put in a bank account. As long as you know what this number is, you will always know your progress. All that’s left is just to keep doing things that help you move that number closer to your goal’s end result, and stop doing what doesn’t change the number.
4. Track a goal by the amount of time you spend on it
There are certain kind of goals that can’t be easily broken down to definitive steps. It is often difficult to find any obvious measurable aspects for their end result. They can be goals, such as, stay in shape, have a peaceful mind, become more fluent in a foreign language, etc. For this type of goals, you can try tracking the amount of time you spend on doing things required by them. For instance, to stay in shape, track how many hours you work out per week. For having a peaceful mind, track how much time you spend meditating, or doing yoga per day. For becoming fluent in a foreign language, track how much time you spend practicing speaking the language per day. So on and so forth.
No matter what type of goals you set, you should always find something to track its progress. The benefit of doing this is that you will always know whether you are making progress or not. If you are, you will feel encouraged and become confident that your goal is reachable. If you aren’t, you will know immediately that what you are doing isn’t working for you, and it isn’t moving you any closer to your goal. Then you adjust your plan and find something else to try, until you have found the right way to do things that will eventually achieve your goal.
Setting and achieving your goal shouldn’t be that hard once you have learnt how to effectively track your progress. All you need to remember is to review your goals regularly, break things down into manageable steps, make it measurable and finally track your time working on your goals. Once you have mastered to do these things, you can accomplish anything you want.
Harry Che
http://www.articlesbase.com/goal-setting-articles/how-to-effectively-track-and-accomplish-your-goals-634310.html
UC Personal Statement Essay: Any Suggestions?
Okay so i wrote this a couple weeks ago and turned it in to my AP English teacher. Other than a few grammatical errors, she said it well written and gave me a 30/30. I just want a second opinion on the context of the essay. Any suggestions will be appreciated!
#1) Describe the world you come from — for example, your family, community or school — and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.
#2) Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are
Most individuals use the term “world” to describe their place of being, or from where they originate. I, on the other hand, find a more figurative interpretation meaning “one’s life” and what he/she has done to shape it. Throughout my life I have believed that it is every human’s duty to contribute something, no matter the size, to the sum of human knowledge, in order to fulfill our collective goal as a species—progress. What significance do we have if we have nothing to show for it? My life, or “world” as one would call it, has shaped my vision to the utmost exactness, and it is my life that will ultimately accomplish my goal of contributing to human understanding.
My family, perhaps the largest influence on my life, has inspired me to want to succeed in life, and to eventually lead a life filled with humbleness and satisfaction. My father, in particular, is by far the hardest working man I have ever known, accompanied by a “never give up” attitude. When I was younger, I hadn’t yet developed a work ethic and didn’t care about school. It was he who pushed me through my studies and thus I credit him for giving me a will to work. He is a excellent role model for me, because whenever I was unsure of what to do in any situation, he would give me proper advice and guide me step by step through the process. Also, my mother has cared for me my whole life and has ensured that I am on the track to success. She too serves as an excellent role model through her hard working nature and willingness to help me with any emotional or mental task. Without them, I guarantee that my outlook on life would be radically different, and I would possibly not even consider going to college.
One other aspect that has had a major influence on my life is my church, and Christianity as a whole. I can also think of my fellow Christians as my family, because they are always there to support me if I am struggling. Though I am a logically thinking science-oriented person, I have committed my life to Christ and have found great humbleness since then. Through years of research, I have found that science can be used to provide evidence for the existence of an intelligent designer, if not God himself. Consequently, when I do become a respected scientist, I can walk into any laboratory or lecture hall and use science, the father of logic and reason, to make any initial skeptic of religion a believer. I feel that this is God’s obligation for me, and I will some day fulfill it.
My family and church, the largest influences on my life, have—to this point—effectively shaped my vision and goals by giving me a support frame on which I can build my life. Without this frame, I would never accomplish my aspirations because I would be lacking the essential qualities to do so. Many such traits that would be essential to my career are: teamwork, leadership, willingness to work, and never giving up. With these developed qualities, I will some day accomplish my dreams and live a fulfilled life.
Curiosity is the underlying factor that drives human progress. Without it, humans would never have advanced past the age of stone and caves. It is ultimately the ability to ask why that has led us to make all of our innovations and advancements in all fields. My question that I pose to myself can best be expressed in the words of the great Stephen Hawking: “What is it that breathes fire into the equations [that govern the universe] and makes a universe for them to describe?”
Since a young age, the dominant quality I have exhibited is curiosity. I often looked at an appliance or device of some sort and wondered how it worked and what it did; I wanted to know what made things “tick.” It was natural that my constant quizzical nature led me to the field of science, specifically astrophysics. Now I want to know how things function on a larger scale, including quasars, general relativity, pulsars and even the difficult topics such as black hole gravitohydromagnetics. Only by completely understanding these subject matters can I quench my insatiable thirst for knowledge.
My dream, simply put, is to obtain a Ph.D. in astrophysics with which I can study the universe, and collaborate with top scientists from around the world. I feel it is my destiny to contribute something to the unfinished “blueprint” that is our universe; this “blu
“blueprint” having been drawn by all great physicists including Newton, Einstein and Hawking.
While my curiosity is what brought me to science, my talents are what I believe will help me in my future and obtain success in my career. My talents that I have demonstrated most frequently are my: ability to work well under pressure, art, public speaking, and ability to write coherent non-fiction. For instance, I can utilize my skill of writing to publish a book that may inform readers of my research, with all illustrations done by myself. My skill of public speaking could be harnessed to present my research to other physicists, as I won first place in the school-wide speech contest in 8th grade. I know these talents will play an integral part of my career and will help me obtain my goals.
Overall, curiosity is my enduring quality and I am proud to have it. My curiosity about life and the world in which we live has sculpted my vision to desire a better understanding of the universe and to want to contribute something to human knowledge. I am satisfied with this ambition, as it gives me a path—perhaps a rather arduous one—in which to take in life, and when accomplished, I will feel completely and utterly satisfied.
Neal–if u did some research you would find out that many respected scientists also have room for God…(btw Darwin never talked about human evolution in his experiments because he was religious and didn’t want to be excommunicated from the church lol)
You can’t believe in god and science. Pick one and leave the other.
References :
Darwin