15 Smart Ways To Reach Your Goals And Make Your Dreams a Reality

All successful people start with a goal. Establishing goals and working toward their achievement is the first step one must take on the long road to success.

By knowing where you are going and how you plan to get there, you will be able to focus your time, energy, and emotion and start on the right track toward reaching those goals.

A ship that has broken its rudder may keep everlastingly at it, may keep on a full head of steam, driving about all the time, but never arrive anywhere.

It never reaches any port unless by accident; and if it does find a haven, its cargo may not be suited to the people, the climate, or the conditions.

The ship must be directed to a definite port, for which its cargo is adapted, and where there is a demand for it, and it must aim steadily for that port through sunshine and storm, through tempest and fog.

So a person who would succeed must not drift about rudderless on the ocean of life, but must steer straight toward a destined port not only when the ocean is smooth, when the currents and winds serve, but also keep the course in the very teeth of the wind and tempest even when enveloped in the fogs of disappointment and mists of opposition.

To help keep you focused on achieving your dreams and goals, I have outlined a simple fifteen-step plan. Practice this and I believe it will help you to find new and innovative ways to reach your goals.

#1. Reaching Your Goals Starts With a Dream.

Do you have a dream a vision of the future? In your dream are you rich? Famous? Happy? Most people do dream of such a future but in most cases, that's all it will ever be a dream.

Successful people have had those dreams, too, but they turned those dreams into goals and in turn into reality. Their dreams were not vague hopes for success, but dreams of specific achievements that they aimed for.

Edison dreamed of a world in which electric energy would light up the night.

Stephenson dreamed of an engine that would pull trains and eliminate the backbreaking labor of men and beasts. Beethoven dreamed of music that would make the spirit soar.

Great actors, artists, musicians, writers dreamed not just of fame, but of the way they would utilize their talents to achieve success.

Dreaming is not limited to such geniuses. All successful people report that their success started with a hope, a dream.

Over the years hundreds of men and women have reported that their achievements all started with a dream, which led to a goal, which led to a plan of action and inevitably to accomplishing the goal.

Dreaming is not limited to the young. It is never too late to have a new dream that leads to new goals that lead to new successes. It is astonishing what people who have had their dreams late in life have accomplished.

Benjamin Franklin was past fifty before he began the study of science and philosophy. Milton, in his blindness, was past the age of fifty when he sat down to complete his epic poem Paradise Lost.

#2. Converting Dreams into Goals.

Unfortunately, too many dreamers remain just that dreamers. The dreams remain dreams. To make your dreams come true, you must believe in your dreams and convert them into goals by taking decisions.

Then they are no longer fantasies, but objectives that you can set before you as a road map to success.

You must bring to your dreams a purpose, a determination that you will do all that you can to make that dream come true.

#3. Rachel Roy's Story How She Achieved Her Dream.

A woman who had a dream and converted it into a successful goal is the clothing designer Rachel Roy. Rachel's love for fashion was inspired by the movies she saw as a child. The clothes the women wore on the screen seemed to give them an aura of confidence and success. 

Rachel dreamed that she could create the same aura for herself and other women, a sophisticated look that would create positive self-esteem. 

She and her family went school shopping once a year. She was disturbed by the lack of interesting clothing choices in a local store and was convinced that if she had the opportunity she could create better styles. Her mother told her that this was the job of a buyer.

Now she could put a name to her dream: " buyer." At that moment, she said, her dream became her goal to become a buyer in the fashion field.

Her first job was as a stock clerk. She moved rapidly to assistant manager, to personal shopper, to stylist in various stores. She was soon designing fashions and was on the road to a senior position in her company.

When her husband, Damon Dash, wanted to start an independent clothing line, Rachel had a decision to make whether or not to leave her own successful career to start over with Damon.

She chose to start over, throwing herself into the job, working in every capacity, tracking everything she did to contribute, and involving herself in as many facets of the business as possible. She wanted to make herself irreplaceable.

After about six years, she was just about to introduce a new line within the company when Damon sold it.

By now Rachel was confident she could run a business herself and formed her own company.

Her designs were acclaimed by the industry and today she is considered one of the foremost designers in the fashion industry.

There is an infinite distance between the wishers and the doers. Rachel Roy was more than a dreamer and a wisher. She turned her dream into a goal and worked hard to reach that goal.

Don't Miss: 12 Smart Positive Body Language Hacks To Create a Lasting Impression

Don't Miss: 10 Little-Known Abundance Habits To Help You Prosper in Life

#4. Your Secret Weapon To Reach Your Goals is Your Subconscious Mind.

Our subconscious minds have a tremendous power in creating in us the habit of expectancy, of believing that we shall realize our ambition; that our dreams will come true.

The very habit of expecting that the future is full of good things for you, that you are going to be prosperous and happy, that you are going to have a fine family, a beautiful home, a successful career, and are going to stand for something, is the-best kind of capital on which to start your life. You must always try to express the ideal.

Your subconscious will respond and the things you would like to come true in your life, whether it be robust health, a noble character, or a superb career, will result.

If you visualize these results as vividly as possible and try with all your might to realize them, they are more likely to come true than if you do not.

#5. Visualize Clearly What You Want.

If you wish to improve yourself in any particular way, visualize clearly the quality as vividly and as tenaciously as possible and hold a superior ideal along the line of your ambition. Keep this persistently in your mind until you feel its uplift and realization in your life.

You are born to win, to conquer, and to lead the triumphant life. You should be a wonderful success in your chosen work, your relationship with people, and in all other phases of your life.

The clearer your instructions are to your subconscious, the more it can help you.

This inner mind responds to your commands much the way sailors manning the engine and controls of an ocean liner respond to the orders of the captain on deck.

If the words are precise and unmistakable, then the crew sets about turning the vessel to the ordered direction or increasing its speed exactly as they are told.

But if you as a captain are not sure yourself what you want, then your subconscious mind will get an unclear message and your ship will follow a random, or haphazard, or circular course. You need to tell your subconscious exactly what you want. You need to direct it to help attain your goals.

When you know what your true desire really is, your subconscious mind will propel you unerringly toward it.

But it needs to know that you genuinely, fervently, and unwaveringly want this goal, and that you will not forsake it for all the other conflicting and contradictory wishes, notions, and momentary fancies that flit through your mind. In that , way you become a positive thinker and are set to meet your goals.

#6. Believe in Your Goals and You Will Achieve Them.

Believe in your goals because prosperity begins in the mind and is impossible to achieve while the mental attitude is hostile to it. It is fatal to work for one thing and to expect something else, because everything must be created mentally first and is bound to follow its mental pattern . 

You cannot become prosperous if you really expect or half expect to remain poor. We tend to get what we expect, and to expect nothing is to get nothing. When every step you take is on the road to failure, how can you hope to arrive at the success goal?

Facing the wrong way, toward the black, depressing, hopeless outlook even though we may be, working in the opposite direction kills the results of our effort.

Thoughts are magnets that attract things like 'themselves. If your mind dwells upon poverty and disease, it will bring you poverty and disease.

There is no possibility of your producing just the opposite of what you are holding in your mind, because your mental attitude is the pattern, which is built into your life. Your accomplishments are achieved mentally first.

The fear of failure and the fear of coming to want and of possible humiliation keep multitudes of people from obtaining the very things they desire, by sapping their vitality and incapacitating them, through worry and anxiety, for the effective, creative work necessary to give them success.

#7. Be an Optimist To Reach Your Goals.

Develop the habit of looking at everything constructively, from the bright, hopeful side, the side of faith and assurance. Refrain from looking at life with doubt and uncertainty.

Acquire the habit of believing the best is going to happen, that the right must triumph.

Have faith that truth is bound finally to conquer error, that harmony and health are the reality and discord and disease the temporary absence of it.

This is the attitude of the optimist, which will ultimately reform the world.

Don't Miss: 11 Proven Techniques On How to Change Yourself For The Better

Don't Miss: 16 Smart Tips To Handle Your Resistance To Change

#8. Oneness of Purpose To Reach Your Goals.

Successful people strongly believe that one must be totally committed to one's goals.

There is great power in a resolution that has no reservation in it a strong, persistent, tenacious purpose that burns all bridges behind it, clears all obstacles from its path, and arrives at its goal, no matter how long it may take, no matter what the sacrifice or the cost.

To succeed you must concentrate all the faculties of your mind upon one unwavering aim, and have tenacity of purpose, which means death or victory. Every other inclination that tempts you must be suppressed.

A one-talent person who decides upon a definite object accomplishes more than a ten-talent person who scatters energies and never knows exactly what to do.

By concentrating powers upon one thing, the weakest living creature can accomplish something; by dispersing powers over many things, the strongest may fail to accomplish anything.

#9. Ways To Reach Your Goals.

Developing goals that are reasonable and achievable is the first step to success whether it is in your career or any other aspect of your life.

You must plant the seeds in your subconscious mind that will enable you to accept and implement these goals. Here are steps that will facilitate this process and help you to achieve your dreams.

#10. Goals Should Be Clearly Stated.

Indicate in clear terms what you wish to accomplish. Be specific and firm in stating the goal.

For example, saying, "My goal is to be the best salesperson in my company" sounds good, but it is better to be more specific: "My goal is to reach a sales volume of so many dollars for the next fiscal year; and 10 percent more each year for the next three years."

Now you know your target, and your subconscious mind will help concentrate your efforts on reaching those figures.

Don't Miss: How To Be Willing To Change Your Life in 8 Scientific Steps

Don't Miss: 7 Steps On How To Change Your Beliefs By Examining Your Thoughts

#11. Goals Should be Inspiring.

If you set a goal that is too easily attained, it will not motivate you to do more; than minimal work.

Set goals that will inspire you to keep moving ahead and to work that much harder to achieve them.

Achievers recognize that once a goal is reached, they should immediately set another goal that will make them stretch to continue to improve and grow .

#12. Goals Should be Measurable.

It is not always possible to quantify your goals. Some goals can be measured in financial or other numerical terms.

You can set sales figures that you wish to attain by the month, quarter, or year in terms of units of product or dollar value. You can set production goals by amount. Even intangible goals, which cannot be quantified, can be established in measurable terms.

The major goal can be broken into segments and timetables set for the completion of each segment.

In this way you can measure how close you are in reaching each of the segments and fine-tune your activities to assure that they will be accomplished in a timely manner.

#13. Goals Should be Action Based.

Unless the actions that will be taken to implement the goals are noted, the goals are no more than dreams. Action requires activity mental, physi­cal, and emotional.

Mentally, you must be prepared to think about your goals every spare moment and what actions you must take to realize them. Your subconscious mind will help you convert your thoughts into actions.

#14. Goals Should Be Written Down.

One way to assure that goals will not be forgotten or lost in your hectic day-to-day life is to write them down.

Make a list of your long-term goals; break them into intermediate and short-term goals.

Write them in large letters and post them where you can see them , every day over your desk, on the refrigerator, on your mirror.

Read them, memorize them, reread them and ask each day: "What am I doing to accomplish these goals?"

#15. Goals Should Be Flexible.

There are times when circumstances change and the goal you set is no longer pertinent.

Economic conditions may not be favorable for starting that new enterprise; technological innovations may have made your goal obsolete; you have made errors in your research and the goal is not feasible.

This does not necessarily mean the goal must be abandoned. It may just require new thinking or more study. If you are faced with such a situation, review what has transpired and make necessary adjustments .