Personal Development
Read Time 4 Minutes

Three ways to set goals and prevent procrastination

Published on
November 7, 2020
Contributors
Written by Scott Lancaster
Entrepreneur & Freelance Branding Expert
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A clearer understanding of goals

A goal is a milestone.

And a step you take towards a goal makes the big picture clearer.

But one thing that takes the life out of every goal as you may probably know is procrastination.

Procrastination is the nemesis of goals and what aids procrastination could be fear of failure, searching for the perfect condition, and perhaps the most interesting of them all; instant gratification: wanting to  do something fun now, perhaps seeing a movie, or do-nothing on Saturdays.

As the saying goes, nothing good comes easy.

Imagine if you’ve always wanted to spend your vacation in a dream location. Perhaps in Europe, somewhere in Caribbean or Maldives,Lalaland.

You can’t just miraculously appear there.

To get to your dream location for relaxation and fun, you must go through the essential, rigorous, and exciting process of planning - passport, visa, flight arrangement, hotel reservation, and many other preparations.

So let’s quickly look at 3 steps to crush procrastination and set achievable goals.

Prioritize

To set goals, first and importantly, you have to set your priority list.

Think of the scale of preference and opportunity cost concepts.

Yes right, those concepts aren’t just for buying supplies from your nearby Mall or cramming for an examination.

They are applicable to a whole range of situations, and that includes goals.

The first stage of setting and achieving a goal is to set your priorities and stick with them.  

If you're interested in learning how to create a better balance between your work and personal life, check out our Work Life Harmony course

Set achievable goals

The next important stage after listing your priorities is breaking your goals in simple, measurable, realistic and achievable bits.

It so easy to set high goals beyond our capacity.

Perhaps we aspire a Hollywood achievement.

Unfortunately, Hollywood is to entertain. Real life realities aren’t fashionable.

So why not make ordinary goals to be achieved extraordinarily.

For example, you desire to write your first novel.

So you test the waters with a short story of a hero saving a million people.

What happened with the hero saving a next door neighbor,then the neighborhood, and you can move up taking the staircase approach.

It’s important to start small, even when you feel lazy or uninspired.

When you begin or continue with your goals, you get momentum.

You feel encouraged with steps taken so far.

And all of a sudden, setbacks can’t stop you any longer because of the progress you have already made.

Set deadlines for yourself.  

A trick to overcoming procrastination and also to setting and achieving goals is to make and meet deadlines.

Even working by false or made-up deadlines enables you understand your work rate in the long-run.

To enforce your deadline, you can intimate a friend on what your intent.

Inform a trusted friend, this is the time to wisely refrain from being secretive.

Or use an app to always remind you of the restrictions you have set.

So, toady, take a step to learn that instrument, learn that new language, read that book, write your first book, call that friend or loved one, start that project, ask out that lady.

Just make it a habit to not to shy away or procrastinate today.

If you're interested in learning how to work towards financial freedom, check out our Master Your Money course


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