How to succeed in life and achieve your goals

How to achieve success in life, work and business?

So how can you become successful in life and achieve your goals?
Many of us do not have clear life goals and priorities. Often we cannot say “NO” to certain people and things. We don't know our strengths and weaknesses. We do not control our energy and often scatter it aimlessly. We are constantly afraid of something.

The basis of success is proper self-organization (self-management) and motivation . All success depends on this!

Self-organization (self-government) means competence, one’s personal and professional development, regardless of external circumstances. Part of self-organization is time management , or in simple words, time management.

Peter Drucker, perhaps one of the most prominent authors on self-management of the 20th century, said that we live in an era of unprecedented personal and professional opportunity.

However, these opportunities require taking responsibility for your development and personal maturity. On this subject, Peter Drucker says:

You must become both a leader and a subordinate for yourself, in other words, on the one hand, you must be able to set the right goals and objectives, organize your time and, on the other hand, follow your plan and complete the intended tasks.
Throughout your life, you must remain curious and productive.
In order to do things well, you must maintain a deep awareness of yourself.
You need to know what skills you have and where you can use them most effectively.

The ultimate goal of self-organization is for us to consciously take our daily work into our own hands.

This also includes: planning, organization, motivation and goal setting .

To achieve success in life you should:

better organize yourself
plan your tasks,
prioritize and of course,
be always motivated.

To sum it up: It is extremely important that you make the most effective decisions.

It would seem that such simple advice, however, it is hard work. Scientists say: every day we make more than 20,000 decisions , most of them within a few seconds. It's quite difficult to imagine!

Especially in the process of work, we again and again find ourselves in situations in which we have to make decisions quickly. We find ourselves in this state, under pressure from lack of time, 60 percent of the time.

What to do right now to ensure you achieve your goal

I have a book, “From Victim to Hero: The Way of a Strong Man,” after reading which you will inevitably gain the determination to act right now.

It is all about changing your thinking in such a way that you can be confident that you will achieve your goal soon.

After reading it, you will learn to think in such a way that you will forget how to live in a world in which something does not suit you, and you will gain the determination to change everything that you would like to change.

You can read the description and reviews of the book, and also purchase it using the link.

Start with one goal

How can you set your goals?
First steps:

Your goal must be clearly defined. The path to achieving a goal is most often not easy. Therefore, you must set clear goals and be able to make decisions more spontaneously and improvise. Too strict planning does not allow this.
Don't be a slave to your goal . It sounds harsh, but there are people who stubbornly stick to a goal once set, no matter what happens to them. It is worth admiring your perseverance if, when your life circumstances change, you are able to adjust your goals or abandon them altogether.
Your hobbies spontaneously shape your goals . If you value something, stand behind it and, most importantly, love it, then you don’t need any other goals. In this case, you know exactly what you want to achieve.

Now let's move on to the main thing - strategies that will allow you to achieve success in life.

Ritual

After the metric there is a ritual. When you look at these metrics, you determine what you should do next. Discuss with someone what corrective actions you can take.

If, for example, it’s weight, then every week or every day you step on the scale. This is the ritual. Then you think about which direction is right or wrong, what worked and what didn’t.

Also in business, when a business is created, a founder’s ritual is required for the first year. Create teams. Every week he must look at what we have done, where we have come, what is good, what is bad and what needs to be changed.

Ritual is very important.

Pareto principle

The Pareto Principle, named after Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), states that 80% of all results come from 20% of our efforts . The remaining 20% of the result requires as much as 80% of our effort.

In other words, we often spend a huge amount of our time and effort on things and deeds that don’t really produce any results.

This is illustrated in the following graph:

Vilfredo Pareto studied the division of land holdings in Italy and found that about 20% of the population owned 80% of all holdings.

This pattern was subsequently extended to other areas of life. It has also found its application in management and self-government.

In everyday life we can see, for example, the following:

We generally only wear 20% of the clothes we have in our wardrobe.
At meetings, as a rule, about 80% of all decisions are made within 20% of the time.
In 20% of the time we complete 80% of the tasks.

Even if the percentage ratio according to the Pareto rule fluctuates in each specific case, the expressed pattern is still preserved to one degree or another.

If you want to plan your time most optimally, you should know that usually 20% of tasks are so important that completing them gives 80% of success!

In business in particular, the Pareto principle is of great importance. It was found, for example,
2 out of 10 companies achieve 80% of total turnover. 20% of customers bring 80% of income.

A prerequisite for applying the Pareto principle is first of all the ability to evaluate your work in terms of productivity and productivity. In addition, a clear formulation of your goals is required.

The Pareto Rule typically requires many years of experience.

Therefore, the following ABC analysis principle will probably work better for you.

ABC analysis (principle)

This principle states that tasks should be organized in order of importance.
A – means very important and urgent (immediate action)

B – means important and not urgent (can be done later or delegated)

C – means urgent and unimportant (delegate or not do at all).

So it's a pretty simple method.

First of all, the tasks of group A as soon as possible.

Advice:
Complete all Group A at a time when you will not be disturbed and when you are most effective.
B tasks are best delegated. If this is not possible, try to solve them effectively later.
the tasks of group C when you have free time. You can delegate them or not do them at all.

Eisenhower principle/matrix

The Eisenhower principle, as its name implies, was proposed by the American general and US President Dwight Eisenhower.

Then Eisenhower recommended dividing tasks into 2 categories :

Important or unimportant
Urgent or non-urgent

To make it all look a little clearer, he recommended - as shown in the image below - using a coordinate system for these categories according to which tasks would be distributed.

The bottom right square is actually nothing more than garbage. These tasks may not be completed. They are neither urgent nor important.

The lower upper square represents unimportant but urgent tasks. These tasks should be delegated.

Tasks that are not urgent but important (bottom left) must be entered into the calendar and later completed step by step.

Remaining tasks in the upper left corner: urgent and important. They must be implemented immediately!

Of course, it would be pointless to develop such a coordinate system for every day. The purpose of this is to internalize this principle so that you can apply it intuitively.

Which method you choose to achieve your goal is your personal choice, the main thing is that it contributes as much as possible to achieving success.

Let's become successful and achieve our goals!

Gradually, step by step, we are moving towards success! So what is the difference between successful people and unsuccessful people?

A few more tips that may be useful if you want to climb the ladder of success:

Write down every idea and every task if you can't complete them right away. You don't have to constantly think about these tasks - it's better to focus on current affairs.
Separate tasks and meetings. There are people who will take up all your time on your calendar. You can also write down daily tasks or notes right next to the dates. If you combine it all in one place, it will quickly lead to confusion.
Divide the work into time blocks. Interestingly, this strategy is known to most people. Unfortunately, there is often a lack of permutation. Working in time blocks—properly organized—can be very effective. It is important that this time remains free and free from interference.
Don't fool yourself. It's the unpleasant tasks that make you put them off. Procrastination is very harmful to us, although we often do not notice it. However, some people view procrastination as a form of planning. In this way they want to ease their conscience. Please avoid this mistake! By doing this, you only sabotage yourself and build a growing mountain of unwanted tasks. You need to ask yourself better why these tasks are unpleasant and what you can do about them.
Remember to take frequent but short breaks. You can relax for 10 minutes after 50 minutes of work.

The following graph shows the changes in concentration over 60 minutes and the fact that the ability to concentrate declines rapidly after just 45 minutes. Therefore, you should take breaks periodically to maintain your productivity.

Individual performance curve

People, like all other living beings, have an “internal clock” called biorhythms.
Depending on the time of day, people are either active or relaxed. The productivity of an individual, as a result, is not always the same throughout the day, but changes at regular intervals.

Successful activities require a high degree of concentration and activity. So important tasks should be completed during the periods in which they are most suitable - in terms of activity and efficiency.

Therefore, it makes sense to know your performance curve and take it into account. To avoid a phase of low concentration while working, you should adjust your work schedule in accordance with your productivity curve.

There are 3 performance curves:

Curve
Curve
Curve.

5.1 Curve

It is suitable for most people.

Productivity is strongly felt in the morning and reaches its climax in the morning (8.00 to 11.00).

It decreases towards lunch and noon and increases again towards evening (18:00 - 20:00).

But the morning peak of productivity will no longer be achieved.

In order to use this performance curve, you must

Schedule important work and meetings during the time of your highest level of productivity - morning
Leave less important matters and routine work for the afternoon.

5.2 Curve

Do you fall asleep late, don’t want to get out of bed in the morning, have no appetite and are not particularly talkative?

Then you are probably a “evening person” whose performance curve is shifted back by 2 hours compared to the “average person”.

5.3 Curve

Are you often already tired by 21.00, but as soon as you wake up, you are already in a cheerful state and are immediately ready to act?

Then most likely you are a morning person.

Your productivity curve moves forward from the average person by approximately 1 hour.

In order to effectively use your performance curve, you must

start your working day early,
use the hour before your colleagues arrive to complete important work in silence,
Perform routine work in the afternoon.

The chart below should help you understand the different performance curves more clearly:

Individual performance should be observed and noted over a long period of time.

Then you can build your personal performance curve and make it the basis of your daily work.

Reduce the number of goals

Write down the 5-6 most important goals you want to achieve in the next 90 days. Why exactly so much? The main thing at this stage is to reduce: the period and the number of items on the list. Why? There are five or six goals, because, as we already know, consciousness is not able to effectively cope with excess information. It is easy for him to focus on only a few tasks at a time. Of course, there is a right time and place for what is called dream creation, when you get rid of all the limitations of thinking and time and indulge in bold and crazy thoughts. This exercise is useful for expanding your horizons and the capabilities of your mind, but now we will do something else. Take a calendar and determine the next checkpoint in about 90 days. Ideally this is the end of the quarter, the end of the month is also suitable. If the end point occurs in 80 or 100 days, that's normal; the main thing is to be close to 90. Why is this important? Because for about that long, a person can be very focused on one important goal without hitting the reset button and still see real progress.

It’s not for nothing that almost all diets or workout programs last approximately 90 days. A great example is the insanely popular at-home fitness program P90X. "P" stands for "power" and "X" stands for "Xtreme." Essentially just a marketing ploy. But behind the number “90” there are serious scientific justifications. The program is not called P10X, because you won’t achieve much success in 10 days, but it’s not P300X either: no one can stick to the program for that long without a break. Why do you think Wall Street places so much importance on companies' quarterly financial reports?

Because it is in this period of time that significant changes can be introduced without losing focus. In any important endeavor, a period much shorter than 90 days is too short to see real progress, and much longer is too long to clearly see the finish line. Study the next 90 days and put numbers on a piece of paper from 1 to 6. You will write down 5-6 most important goals that you want to achieve in 90 days. Now look at all areas of your life: work, finances, physical health, mental/emotional well-being, family, community involvement - so that your list is comprehensive.

While you're writing down your most important goals for the next 90 days, let's review what makes a goal effective. In the previous chapter, we looked in detail at the five essential characteristics of your goals, and here I will again list them briefly.

1 . What you write down should be meaningful to you. These goals are yours and no one else's, so be sure to write down what you really want to achieve.

2. What you write down must be specific and measurable. We're talking about a 90-day program with a clear end date, so general phrases like “increase income,” “lose weight,” or “save money” are inappropriate. Be clear about what exactly you intend to achieve during this period. How much money can you earn or save? How many kilograms to lose? How many kilometers to run? What will your sales be (define specific numbers)? Your numbers or details themselves are not important to me, but specificity is necessary. By neglecting this step, you will miss out on most of the opportunities this process gives you.

3. Goals must be of a suitable scale: requiring effort, but at the same time achievable from your point of view. Remember: you have about three months to do everything, and then you’ll have to sound the all-clear. So choose goals of a suitable scale. When performing this exercise, you will have to choose between the options “a goal that is bolder so that you have to strain” and “a goal that is more modest so that you are on the safe side.” The choice depends on your experience and previous successes. If you are used to easily achieving the main thing or you are a little bored, then choose a more daring goal. If you are doing this for the first time, then you should choose a more modest goal.

4 . Even if it is obvious, I will emphasize: goals need to be recorded in writing. You will be doing both yourself and me a disservice if you read all this and do nothing. I didn't say "think about what you want to achieve in the next 90 days", I said "write it down." I assure you that the coordinated work of the eyes, hands and brain raises the selection and design of goals to a whole new level. So, get your goals down with pen and paper, not just in your mind.

5 . You'll be reviewing what you write on a regular basis, so be honest with yourself and create goals that you're excited to achieve. Once you've laid the groundwork, we'll develop a whole plan with accountability to ourselves and programming elements, so keep in mind that you'll be interacting with those goals.

Enough descriptions - it's time to work! Take a pen and paper and write down your 5-6 most important goals for the next 90-100 days. Give it as much time as you need, and then get back to reading.

What tasks did I complete today and what did I achieve?

Things don't always go as easily as we would like. Therefore, you must stay motivated throughout the day.

Everyone, including top managers and highly qualified athletes, has experienced a lack of motivation. It is often tedious, boring, or difficult to follow your plan. This can seriously weaken motivation.

Motivation is a prerequisite for successful work. But how can you motivate your reluctance, especially if you are at the bottom?

Become aware of your own motives and their meaning.

Motivation is often just a matter of having the right attitude.

Motivation and drive to achieve certain goals can only be achieved if you have a compelling reason to achieve this goal.

Only when a person understands the benefits of the goal and the actions associated with it, will he be able to motivate himself and work towards achieving the goals.

If a task seems strange to you in some way or you cannot understand its meaning, then you should question this task. Try to collect all possible information about the task being performed: Why do it? What will this give me? Do I need this?

Each person is individual. For one, a vacation with his family is a great happiness, another needs the applause of the audience, while the third lives only with his car.

The first step towards self-motivation is to understand what really motivates you.

90% of actions

Once we've defined the vision and how badly we want it, the next step is action. For me this is 90% of the time. I always think first about the Mind Set - what mental settings are needed to achieve the goal.

In second place are Skills - skills, you need to study what you need to be able to do to achieve your goal, this is a huge amount of knowledge.

In third place are Tools - tools, life hacks, which we usually love very much. People focus immediately on the tools, skipping the skills and mind set-up. Everyone is looking for some simple key.