Exploring the 3 Common Goals Shared by Successful People and How to Achieve Them

Goals are important because they are dreams that shape our future. They are the things that we want to achieve and can help us feel a sense of accomplishment and increased self-esteem when we reach them. Of course, they are only goals if we have a plan and are putting effort into working towards them, otherwise dreams are all they are. Something I've noticed is that many people who are successful in achieving their goals and seem to accomplish big things in life also have similar goals. Everyone's definition of success is different and the type of people I look up to may be different than who other people aspire to be like. For me, people who are successful are those who are continually doing things to become the best version of themselves that they can in every way possible and push the limits of what most would consider to be possible. Below are common goals and how to achieve them.

Read Self Help Books

Reading self help books can help guide us to do the things that we want to do. I read a variety of books, many of which can be considered self help books because books about psychology can almost always be applied to myself. I often have a goal of reading certain books or reading a certain amount of books and I have found that it is easiest for me to get better at something with the use of self help books if I intentionally choose the books that I want to read. For example, I want to learn how to better help myself cope and overcome bad habits so I purposefully selected a book about DBT skills and other books about twelve-step programs. These not only teach me how to help other people, but helps me apply these things to myself. I specifically chose books that also applied to the field of counseling because that is how my brain has been trained to think.

Master a Difficult Skill

A skill that I have worked hard to master is exercising consistently. It can be easy to have motivation to do a few workouts or here and there, but it can be much harder to be consistent about it and continue to give it all your effort. One way of learning how to master a difficult skill is to understand how you learn best. For me, I learn best by understand the thought processes behind it. For example, with learning to be consistent with working out, I had to understand how to form a habit, how to recover when I mess up, how to challenge negative thoughts, how to build myself up, and learn about the benefits. The more I learned about the psychology behind it and practiced the skills, the better I got at the overall skill of being consistent with working out. Now I do yoga about everyday and run about three days a week.

Run a Half Marathon

Running a half marathon is a way to push yourself just a little further. I've run many 5Ks and felt comfortable with that distance and like I couldn't do anything more than that even if I wanted to. I have since run a 10K and a half marathon and will be running a full marathon in May. Before, I used to be very competitive and was set on trying to be the fastest for my age group and being "good enough." I think I was so hard on myself so I really did not think I could do any further of a distance because I didn't think I was "good enough." Now, I have learned that I can do pretty much anything as long as I put in the effort. I have approached my work so far of running a half marathon by just having fun. The goal is to finish and I may as well have fun along the way. I have fun wearing my workout clothes and feeling like "that person who works out," I have fun listening to my music while I run, I have fun enjoying being outside, I have fun recognizing my progress, I have fun bonding with my brother, and I have fun imagining what I am capable of. And that's how I ran a half marathon. I'm hoping it will get me through the full marathon.

What are Your Goals?

• Read Self Help Books
• Master a Difficult Skill
• Run a Half Marathon
• Other

You can vote for more than one answer.