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YOUR 3-STEP ACTION PLAN TO REACH ANY GOAL - LIFEHACK.ORG
Introduction
Have you set goals for yourself before, trying to change your life for the better? How many
times have you succeeded reaching these goals? How many times have you failed?
If you’ve failed to reach your goals a couple of times, or even every single time, you’re not
alone.
Most people know the importance of goal setting in order to attain a better life, but
approximately 80 percent of people never set goals for themselves. And of the 20 percent of
the population that does set goals, roughly 70 percent fail to achieve the goals they have set
for themselves.
Why is this happening?
We do want to live a better life and accomplish our goals at work and in life, why is reaching
these goals so difficult?
Together in this activity sheet, we will figure out why you failed to reach your goals in the
past, and what you can do to finally accomplish your goal this time.
First, let’s do a quick self reflection on why you couldn’t achieve your goals last time.
Why Did You Fail to Reach Your Goal?
Think about the last time you set a goal (or goals) for yourself, why couldn’t you follow it
through? What happened?
Describe the experience:
It must be frustrating that you weren’t able to make that change and make your goals
happen. But you know what? Failure is life's great teacher, and we can all learn from it.
How?
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YOUR 3-STEP ACTION PLAN TO REACH ANY GOAL - LIFEHACK.ORG
To get to the root cause of why you didn’t make it.
At Lifehack, one of the effective techniques we use to dig into the root cause of anything is
the 5 Whys framework. This is in fact a technique within our C
ornerstone Skill -- Motivation,
that we use to help people find their true purpose of life.
Here’s an example of how apply 5 Whys to figure out the true reason you couldn’t reach
your goal:
The initiate why could be “I gave up hitting the gym after the second week.”
Why? Because I was too tired to go to the gym.
Why? Because I had a busy schedule and would prefer resting or having fun than hitting the
gym.
Why? Because going to the gym was no fun to me, and I just couldn’t carry on.
Why? Because I couldn’t really see the reason why it was worth it to go to the gym.
See the difference between the initial reason and the root cause at the end? The root cause
goes to an unclear goal and intention, which leads to loss of motivation.
Now it’s your turn to get to the root cause:
What’s the real reason behind your failing experience?
Most likely, the root cause falls into one of the following categories, which are what we
cover in details in Lifehack’s C
ornerstone Skill -- Motivation:
1. An Unclear Goal
When you don’t know where you are going, it is really hard to get there. Many people set
themselves up for failure when they set goals that are unclear. “I want to hit the gym”
sounds like a great goal but the people who set this kind of goal will never reach it.
It is not because the people are not motivated or disciplined but because the goal is too
general. Do you want to hit the gym every morning, every other day or every month?
2. Being Unfocused
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YOUR 3-STEP ACTION PLAN TO REACH ANY GOAL - LIFEHACK.ORG
Maybe you’re trying to achieve many goals at the same time, getting yourself overwhelmed.
Or maybe you’re getting distracted by your everyday demands when you try to reach your
goals. You simply can’t seem to make enough room to do what is needed to accomplish your
goal.
3. Lacking a Higher Purpose
Goals can be set on any topic imaginable but if you don’t have a higher purpose, it makes it
is easy to give up once the initial motivation and excitement wears off.
Take hitting the gym as an example, why do you want to hit the gym? To build lean muscle?
To have a six pack? To lose certain number of pounds to be healthier?
Understanding how your goal is relevant to you allows you to persevere even when the
going gets tough.
4. Loss of Motivation Along the Way
When you completely focus on the end-result you want, you’ll get discouraged with your
mess-ups easily and lose motivation.
It’s hard to recognize where you are at reaching your goal if you have no way of measuring
how far you’ve gone and have to go.
Besides, as human beings, we are wired to instant gratifications. Without any rewards
along the long journey to our ultimate goal, we’re prone to giving up halfway.
So how to really reach your goal and change your life this time? Let’s get to Your Action Plan
in the next section.
Your Action Plan to Reach Any Goal:
3 Steps to Realize Your Goal
Instead of relying on your willpower, what you need is a strategic framework to focus on
one clear goal and figure out the exact actions to take in order to accomplish what you
want.
The following framework is a combination of the 7 Cornerstone Skills we teach at Lifehack.
You will be applying these Cornerstone Skills -- Motivation, Focus, and Time -- to learn to set
SMARTER goals, stay motivated, and begin to realize these goals.
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YOUR 3-STEP ACTION PLAN TO REACH ANY GOAL - LIFEHACK.ORG
Step 1: Set SMARTER Goal
You’ve heard of SMART goal, what about SMARTER goal?
A SMARTER goal goes beyond setting a goal that is S
pecific, Measurable, Achievable,
Realistic and T
ime Bound. It gets to understanding your True Intention.
Finding Your True Intention
Again, a good way to help you find out the root reason why you want something is by using
the 5 Whys framework. Here’s a very typical example we see a lot:
Jack is a young dad who works hard hours at a desk job, leaving physically tired with little
opportunities for active exercise. He recently decided to finally join a gym to get fit.
What’s my current goal? T
o start working out at least once a day.
The initial why: I want to do this because I want to be more fit.
1. Why... do I want to be more fit?
Because I have trouble with physical activities that last longer than 15 minutes.
2. Why…?
Because I don’t have time to exercise or I feel too tired at the end of a day
3. Why... is that a problem?
Because my son is turning 2 and I don’t want to have difficulty keeping up with him.
4. Why... is this important?
Because I want to be actively involved in his upbringing and not be on the sidelines
for physical reasons.
In this case, Jack’s t rue intention i s a lot deeper than just “working out”. His goals should in
fact be a lot more specific and encompass his lifestyle as well. Here are some example
SMART goals he can set instead:
1. Set new morning and night routines aimed increasing my energy
2. Restructure my daily habits (eg: chores) to make them more efficient and give me
more time
3. Schedule short but effective fitness sessions that fit into my week that can be easily
done either at work or home
If you compare the original goal to the new set of goals, you can see:
● How much more focused and targeted they are
● Directly address his current problems/challenges
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YOUR 3-STEP ACTION PLAN TO REACH ANY GOAL - LIFEHACK.ORG
● That they are aligned with what he really wants
Which one do you think will turn out successful? It’s a simple exercise, but the end result can
be enormous!
Now it’s your turn to find your true intention:
Setting a SMART Goal
Once you’re clear about what you truly want, it’s time to set yourself a SMART goal.
The strength of SMART goals is that they set a clear path to achieving goals and they have
a clear time frame in which to achieve them.
Let’s go through each of the elements to create a SMART goal:
Specific
It is important to have a clear idea of what you want to achieve. That way you can focus
your time and energy on achieving your goal.
For instance “ I will start planning toward retirement” i s vague. “I will start planning toward
retirement by starting an annuity plan” is more specific.
To make your goal specific, ask yourself these questions:
What exactly needs to be accomplished?
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YOUR 3-STEP ACTION PLAN TO REACH ANY GOAL - LIFEHACK.ORG
Where will this take place?
Measurable
You want to know it when you’ve achieved your goal. You should also be able to tell how far
you’ve come during the process, and how much further to go. Be specific with h
ow much or
how many about your goal.
Using our example while explaining the Specific acronym, you can make the goal more
measurable by saying, “I will start planning toward retirement by starting an annuity plan
and saving $500 every month.”
To make your goal measurable, ask yourself these questions:
How will I know I’ve succeeded?
How many accomplishments or actions will it take?
Achievable
Look at what skills and resources you already have, and compare them to the things needed
to achieve your goal. Think about whether you’ll be able to learn or get the things you lack
right now.
A goal like this is not achievable: “ I want to get a six-pack in 1 week.” Meanwhile this person
is not at all in shape, and losing weight and building muscle would probably take months.
To make your goal achievable, ask yourself these questions:
Do I have, or can I get, the resources needed to achieve the goal?
Is the goal a reasonable stretch for me? (neither out of reach nor too easy)
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YOUR 3-STEP ACTION PLAN TO REACH ANY GOAL - LIFEHACK.ORG
Realistic
Before you proceed to making the commitment toward that goal, you need to think about
whether you are willing to make all the commitments required for that goal to be achieved.
Research into the facts and figures relevant to your goal. Then think about the resources
available to you, such as your budget, time frame, the help you can get, etc. Ask yourself if
your goal makes sense in your situation.
Thus, using our previous example, “ I want to get a six-pack in 1 week” f or a unfit person is
also unrealistic, and will only be overwhelming for him/her.
To make your goal realistic, ask yourself these questions:
Am I willing to make these commitments to reach the goal? Why?
Are the actions I plan to take likely to bring success? Why?
Time Bound
The act of having deadlines set to your goals is ample motivation to drive you into action.
Without a deadline, it is not possible for you to know if you’re making headway with your
goals.
“I will start planning toward retirement by starting an annuity plan and saving $500 every
month for the next twenty five years” is a time bound goal.
Remember that some goals are short term while some are long term. It is important to
always bear this in mind because this will help you in making a clearer and realistic strategy
for your SMART goal setting.
To make your goal time bound, ask yourself these questions:
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YOUR 3-STEP ACTION PLAN TO REACH ANY GOAL - LIFEHACK.ORG
What is the deadline for reaching the goal?
When do I need to take action?
After going through the SMART goal framework, have you formed a solid goal based on
your true intention? Write down your final SMARTER goal statement here:
My SMARTER Goal
Step 2: Plan for Your Goal
Setting goals is one thing, making them happen is another. Without a concrete action plan,
a SMARTER goal can still fail.
Why?
A goal contains a series of action steps, which have varying degrees of difficulty. When you
look at the goal as a whole, you might feel discouraged by how far you are from the
completion point, and end up procrastinating or losing motivation.
To tackle this issue, our C
ornerstone Skill -- Focus comes into place. One of the great
techniques used is the Focus Flow, which is mainly driven by m
ilestones.
Breaking the goal down into several milestones helps keep you motivated. They are the
small wins that help you accumulate your successes and give you momentum to reach your
final objective.
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YOUR 3-STEP ACTION PLAN TO REACH ANY GOAL - LIFEHACK.ORG
Instead of focusing on how far you have to go until you complete the big goal, you can shift
your focus to the smaller, more manageable milestones.
Besides, milestones also help you stay on track with completing your big goal by a certain
date. Setting a deadline is one of the key hallmarks of achievable goals. If you don’t have a
deadline, other commitments will get in the way.
Setting Milestones
Based on your SMART goal, set 12 milestones -- one for each month. Every month, you will
complete a milestone until you realize your resolution.
Think of a milestone like a big step to accomplish for each month, so each step completed
will bring you closer to your ultimate goal. It may take less than 12 months depending on
what the change is.
Here’re 3 criteria for setting a milestone:
● It must be challenging.
● It can be completed within 3 to 4 weeks.
● It needs to be concrete.
If you don’t know how to set all the necessary milestones to achieve your goal, do the
following:
● Look for people who have successfully done what you are wanting to do,
especially those with a track record. Ask for their feedback! Don’t hesitate, most of
the time people would like to share their approach with you.
● Find the right online community on sites like Quora, Facebook or Reddit. Ask for
their feedback, and let them review your roadmap.
● Find a roadmap that shares some proximity and modify it on your own if you’re
doing something unique.
So now, based on your SMART goal, come up with 12 milestones to achieve:
Questions to keep in mind:
● Is it challenging?
● Can you complete it within 3 to 4 weeks?
● Is it concrete?
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YOUR 3-STEP ACTION PLAN TO REACH ANY GOAL - LIFEHACK.ORG
Coming up with Actions
After setting up the milestones, you’ll need to figure out the exact things to do in order to
reach each of these milestones.
Our C
ornerstone Skill -- Time stresses about "Time is Change". Why? Because time is spent
on actions.
Think about it, time passes the moment you take different actions -- whether it’s taking a
nap, watching TV, checking your Facebook, eating or choosing to do nothing at all.
If you want to achieve each milestone, then you need to s
pend your time on the RIGHT
actions.
To help you determine if it's the RIGHT action to take, make use of these 3 criteria:
● I. Intention - why you are doing it
● II. Value - what benefits this task brings you
● III. Cost - what you have to give up or invest to achieve the value
How to make use of these criteria? Don’t worry! We’ll dive right into each of them.
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YOUR 3-STEP ACTION PLAN TO REACH ANY GOAL - LIFEHACK.ORG
I. Intention
To have a clear intention, ask yourself whether an action can help your make progress
towards your milestones. Then categorize your tasks into:
● Must haves - Absolutely critical to achieve the objective. Without it, the outcome is
meaningless. It should take top priority for resources and time.
● Should haves -Important but not critical. However, leaving it out may lessen the
impact of the final result.
● Good to haves - Having it is nice, but not including it won't have any negative impact
on our objective. When the must-haves and should-haves are all fulfilled, and you
have time and resources to spare, then you can consider the good-to-haves.
List out all the tasks you can think of associated with your milestone and categorize each of
these tasks:
Milestone # Tasks Must Have /
Should Have /
Good to Have
1
2
3
4
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5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
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YOUR 3-STEP ACTION PLAN TO REACH ANY GOAL - LIFEHACK.ORG
II. Value
The next step is to quantify the tasks into something you can objectively rank, using a
scoring system. Assigning numbers gives you a common metric for comparing a range of
different tasks.
Start by assigning a number value to each of your tasks. T
he higher the number, the more
important/urgent/valuable it is.
Use Fibonacci Numbers (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 20) as the numbers go up in increasingly larger
intervals. This forces you to provide a relative estimate.
III. Cost
Some tasks are difficult, require external help, or require extreme focus. This is usually
reflected in the time required to complete it.
Split cost estimates into half-hour intervals. D
on’t go more than 3 hours as that is the upper
limit of Focus sessions, and also means that the task is too big; so break it down f urther.
The table below is a template to quantify the value, cost and final score of each task. Create
your own table to write everything down, depends on the number of tasks you have for each
milestone.
Tasks for Milestone #1
# Task Value Cost *Final Priority
(hours) Score (Highest Final score =
Highest Priority)
1 E.g. Research for youtube 13 0.5 26 1
videos about at-home
workouts
2 E.g. Shop for workout 5 1 5 3
outfits
3 E.g. Follow a beginner 20 1 20 2
workout video to workout
- Day 1
* How to calculate the final score: Divide the task’s Value by its Estimated Cost, round the
number down when necessary.
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YOUR 3-STEP ACTION PLAN TO REACH ANY GOAL - LIFEHACK.ORG
Building a Reward System
As mentioned at the beginning of this activity sheet, we human beings are wired to instant
gratification. So to help us stay motivated and always keep our eyes on the big picture, we
need to build ourselves a Reward System -- something that we embrace in our C
ornerstone
Skill -- Habit.
A reward is the positive reinforcement your brain identifies with, after you’ve accomplished
something. It is associated with your accomplishment, so that your brain will actively
perform a task continuously.
In order to complete your milestones, you need some solid and lasting rewards, consider
these 2 criteria when coming up with your rewards:
● You get the same amount of positive reinforcement for each reward.
● The size of the reward is in direct proportion to the effort you take to complete your
milestone.
If coming up with 12 different rewards for each milestone is too hard, just come up with a
few and repeat them every other month or so.
Now, try to come up with some rewards for achieving your milestones in the space below:
Questions to keep in mind:
● Do they have the same level of positive reinforcement?
● Do they align with the effort you put into work?
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YOUR 3-STEP ACTION PLAN TO REACH ANY GOAL - LIFEHACK.ORG
Step 3: Act on Your Goal
Now that you have set a clear SMARTER goal from Step 1, and formed a list of milestones,
tasks and a reward system to help you stay motivated from Step 2, the last step is to make
sure that you’re fitting all these tasks and milestones into your everyday life.
The best way to do it is to schedule these tasks on a weekly timeframe.
Which day will you do it? At what time will you do it?
Try to think about these questions and mark the tasks down in the following weekly plan
template:
Day Task Hours Time
Sun E.g.
- Research for youtube videos 0.5 11:00-11:30
about at-home workouts
- Shop for workout outfits 1 14:00-15:00
Sun
Mon
Tue
Wed
Thu
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YOUR 3-STEP ACTION PLAN TO REACH ANY GOAL - LIFEHACK.ORG
Fri
Sat
Since this is only a template to help you think about the days and time to complete these
tasks, you’ll need to really schedule these tasks on your own calendar -- whether it’s on your
mobile phone or personal journal. It’s also best to set a reminder so you won’t miss the
tasks.
And there you go, 3 complete steps to help you accomplish your goal this year!
Make Big Changes with Small Steps
Achieving goals can be challenging, but with this 3-step action plan and our Cornerstone
Skills, your journey to reaching your goal will be a lot easier.
With the 7
Cornerstone Skills, you’ll be able to live your life with a clear intention. Whatever
goals or dreams you have, these skills can set yourself up for success.
As demonstrated in this activity sheet, with the Cornerstone Skills, you can always set clear
goals for yourself, stay motivated to follow through your goals, and actually make your
goals happen.
And do you know what’s the best part of these 7 Cornerstone Skills? They are transferable
skills that can be applied to achieve excellence in every aspect of your life. Whether it’s a
successful career, a happy relationship, a healthier body, or a comfortable lifestyle that
you’re looking for, equipping yourself with these Cornerstone Skills can help you nail them
all.
If you’d like to learn more about these precious 7 Cornerstone Skills we teach at Lifehack,
and how you can take your happiness and success to the next level, stay tuned with our
email newsletter. All the tips and tricks that help you transform your life and take control of
it will be delivered to your inbox every now and then!
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