Goals. They give your life direction and the right ones will challenge you to go beyond what you ever thought you were capable of achieving. Today I’m going to share with you 5 little-known secrets that will absolutely help you accelerate your success when it comes to smashing your goals!

Now, I’m sure you’ve heard a million times about SMART goal setting. It’s possibly the most popular method of structuring a goal to increase your chance of actually achieving it.

SMART is an acronym for Specific Measurable Achievable Relevant and Time-bound. The idea is you create a goal that is very specific, can be measured, is achievable and relevant. You also need to define a certain time frame in which you need to achieve the goal.

Using the SMART structure to goals is really important and helpful but everybody teaches you that stuff like that, it’s pretty common knowledge.

What I’m going to teach you today are five secrets that will absolutely change the way you write goals. Using the SMART structure plus these five secret tips will totally skyrocket your ability to achieve any goal!

Secret #1 – Use positive language and framing

Always set your goals using positive language and frame them in a positive way. Avoid tainting your goal with any negativity.

For example; saying ‘I’m drowning in debt so my goal is to pay it off’ has a negative, uninspiring feeling about it. It feels like ‘Arrgggh, I’ve got debt, this sucks, this is awful.’

So switch it up to something with more positive language like ‘I’m going to make $100,000 in the next 12 months!’

Using negative language; in any area, not just goal setting; can actually start to attract negativity into your life.

Secret #2 – Have belief and conviction

The second secret is you truly have to have belief and conviction in what you say. It’s all well and good to say you want something but do you really, absolutely believe it deep down?

Use language like ‘I will. I am. I have.’ not ‘I want, I hope, I’ll try.’

So, every goal you write, I want you to start with I will, or I have, or I am. Something that shows that you’re really, really convinced without a shadow of a doubt that you WILL achieve this thing.

‘I want’ to is too vague. It’s too arbitrary. It tells your brain ‘This is a nice option, but not a must.’

You have to tell your brain ‘This is a must!’

It’s not about ‘Oh, I want to run a marathon.’

Nope, it’s ‘I will run a marathon and I’m going to enjoy the process!’

Or  ‘I’ll easily make $100,000 and enjoy the process.’

You also have to pop some of these words in like ‘easily’ and ‘enjoy’. Words to make sure that you are capturing how you feel.

Secret #3 – Include how you want to feel in your goal

Let me share something with you, the reason we set goals is because we are chasing a feeling. The goal itself will lead to us feeling a certain way. That feeling is actually the goal.

For example, we want to lose weight because we want to feel beautiful and confident.

It’s not just about ‘I want to lose weight.’ You’re trying to reach a feeling of energy,  happiness, health, confidence, whatever.

It’s the same as if you had a goal to make $100,000. Why? $100,000 of paper notes or decimal points on a screen isn’t actually going to do that much for you. It’s the feeling you’re looking for that you believe that money can buy you; happiness, freedom, security, etc.

Think about the feeling you are trying to achieve and include that in your goal. Phrase it like ‘I’m going to easily do this. I’m going to excitingly do this. I’m going to have fun doing this!’

Secret #4 – Always add the potential to go BEYOND your goal

The fourth secret in writing a great goal is you have to stretch your mind by adding the potential to overachieve your goals.

What exactly do I mean by that?

Let’s take the example of the goal to pay off debt. Instead of saying ‘I want to get rid of debt, you’ve used positive language and framing to turn the goal into –

I want to make $100,000

Then you’ve added conviction and belief to change the goal to:

I WILL make $100,000

Then you’ve added in some positive, fun feeling language:

I will EASILY make $100,00 and ENJOY the process

It’s at this stage you add the extra, overachieving bit in:

I will easily make $100,00 OR MORE and enjoy the process

 Or, if you’re trying to lose or reduce something say ‘or less.’

You have to add that potential to overachieve because otherwise, your brain stops. You get to $100,000 your goal has been achieved and your mind believes it’s done the job.

But if it’s $100,000, or more, your brain keeps looking for more opportunities to achieve beyond that. Always include the possibility of overachieving in your goal.

Secret #5 – Write your goal like you’ve already achieved it

You have to write out the goals as if you’ve already achieved them. So when you read your goal, you’re telling your brain you’ve already achieved it, it’s in the bag, done.

I’ll give you an example of how your get out of debt goal might look writing it as if you’ve already achieved it:

It’s the 1st January 2019 and I am grateful that I’ve easily made a $100,000 or more, and enjoyed the process.

This is a perfect example of turning the uninspiring goal of  ‘I want to get out of debt’ into something way more inspiring and motivating!

I want you to absolutely have goals that inspire you and make you want to get out of bed every morning. Not boring, unmotivating goals that seem like a chore.

You’re going to create these exciting, amazing, inspiring goals by using those five secrets:

• Use positive language to write and frame your goals.
• Have belief, conviction and use words to show how you feel like ‘easily’ and ‘enjoy’
• Add the potential to go beyond your goal
• Write your goals as if you have already achieved them

Bonus goal setting tactic – Juice it up!

One last thing I want to add is to go the extra mile and really juice up your goals.

I was having a conversation with somebody I was coaching recently and they said:

‘I want to meet the man of my dreams. That’s my goal, to meet the man of my dreams.’

Then we took the goal, made it SMART and then followed some of the tips I’ve just shared with you and the goal became:

‘It’s the 1st January 2019, I have met the man of my dreams and enjoyed the process meeting him.’

So the goal was sounding great but there was still a little more we could do to really juice it up. In the end, the goal became:

‘It is New Year’s Eve, 2019  and I am in the arms of the most amazing man of my dreams. I am feeling thrilled and happy and excited to be with him. I’ve loved the process of finding that man of my dreams.’

You can feel the difference, right?

It’s not just about following the process and making it mechanical. You’ve got to add some emotion in there.  Have some fun with it. You’ve got to be able to visualise that moment when you achieve that goal.

Visualising the goal really helps you anchor that emotion. When you feel really emotionally connected to a goal, it becomes totally supercharged with energy and you’re way more inspired to put 100% into achieving it.

So, you’ve got your SMART process, you’ve got your five secrets, and then you’re going to supercharge them with emotion and juice them up.

Now get to it and start planning those awesome goals! I’ve even got a template you can download here to help you with the process.

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