You’ve accepted the challenge, gotten the help you need, put your action plan together, eliminated the negative, and gotten excited. What’s left? You need to execute all of it!

This is where so many goals fall to the wayside. Why? Because, achievement of your worthwhile goal is going to take effort, maybe even that four-letter word – WORK!

You need to execute the plan you put in place. You know the plan will work. You know it’ll take you to your goal. But, you need to get into the trenches and do it.

The reason for all the other words in the acronym is that the execution may take a while. Sometimes you won’t see regular, noticeable progress toward your goal. You’ll talk to your mentor and your mentor will say: “Just keep doing what you’re doing.” Great. That’s not what you wanted to hear; you wanted to hear a new plan, maybe some way to escape the drudgery. But no, just keep doing it, keep executing.

Just remember, no worthwhile goal is achieved without effort and discipline. That’s why this last word is so important. Execute, stay with it, keep your eye on the goal, and execute!

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I remember an old saying: “Nothing happens until somebody gets excited!” Well, it’s your goal and you’re going to achieve it, so YOU need to get excited.

Remember why you set the goal you did? It’s something important to you. It’s something that will make an improvement in your life, maybe a BIG improvement. Isn’t that something to get excited about?

I’ve been talking about change in this series of posts, and change is sometimes uncomfortable. So, don’t focus on the changes you’re making to work toward your goal, focus on the goal. Keep it in front of you all the time. Visualize what it will be like to have the positive change in your life that the goal will bring.

Sometimes it takes a while to reach our goals, so we have to be sure to remember the benefits, the satisfaction, and the all-around good that we will experience when we achieve it. When you remember that, I know you’ll get excited; and that excitement will help you follow through on your action plan and achieve your goal!

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If you want to achieve your goals, and I know you do, you must believe that you can and that you will. There is no room for negative thoughts about it. Positive thoughts won’t ensure your success, but negative thoughts definitely can stop your progress.

How do you get rid of the negative thoughts? First, write your goals as positive statements. This helps your mind focus on achieving them rather than how difficult it might be.

Next, you need to convince your mind that you will succeed. There are a number of ways to do this, but one of the strongest is to talk to yourself! Yes, I said talk to yourself. But, don’t be telling yourself how hard it will be. Don’t tell yourself that you ‘re not making the progress you want to make. In short, don’t say your negative thoughts out loud! When you say things out loud, your brain is listening! Don’t tell it you can’t, tell it you can. In fact, it will help your belief system if you read your positively-stated goals two or three times a day. Remember, your brain is listening.

Remember the H in “Change”? I mentioned getting help from friends and family who would be supportive. You also want to be sure you don’t listen to people who are not supportive…they’re negative about your prospects and you want to avoid the negative.

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You’ve committed to your goal, you have the help you need, and you undoubtedly have an action plan that you believe will take you to your goal. Now, you must take action!

Depending on your goal and your action plan, you might be taking actions on a daily basis (like for a diet goal), or the actions might be less regular than that. But, you must take the actions identified in your plan regularly, as laid out in your action plan.

Here are a couple more things you should work into your plan: track your actions against the plan and measure their effects. Tracking your actions keeps you accountable to your plan. Measuring the actions’ effects verifies that the plan actually works. If you’re really following it and it’s not working as effectively as you expected, you will probably want to adjust the plan. Taking measurements along the way ensures you don’t flawlessly execute a flawed plan and end up disappointed in the end!

A good plan, steady action, and periodic checking will bring you success!

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There are two (at least) kinds of help that can be instrumental in your achieving your goal. The first kind of help you will want to have is the support of your family or friends. If you’re married, I strongly urge you to have your spouse’s support in what you’re doing. You may be doing the actions needed to reach your goal, but as your life is changing so is your spouse’s life. Get together on it; it’s important.

Help from others in your family or from your friends can also be very beneficial, but be a little careful here. We all have friends and family who can be quick to say something like: “Why do you want that?” or “You’ll never be able to do that!” My advice? Don’t enlist their help. Don’t even bring up your goal until you’re on your way and the change is becoming obvious.

The second kind of help you might need is the help of a mentor or expert who can guide you in setting up your plan and understand your progress along the way. This person might also be someone for you to be accountable to, someone who you commit to reporting your actions to so that you have an extra motivation to stay on your plan. Be sure the person you choose has the expertise needed to give you good advice. That will give you more confidence in your plan.

You are now committed, and you have help available. This is a good start!

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Is the goal you have set for yourself important enough to you that you can commit to achieving it? It must be, or you will never reach it. Now, depending on how big the goal is (and how much change is going to be required), this might not be all that difficult. Big goals require big commitments. Small goals probably require smaller commitments, but you still must commit to achieving them.

What do I mean by commitment? I mean that once you have decided on an action plan to reach the goal, you must follow through on that action plan. This may be a little difficult at first because that’s when the change you’re making in your life will be most obvious to you. That’s also when progress toward the goal is the least obvious. Once the change in your life becomes a new “normal,” the commitment will be easier to maintain.

Here’s another thought: You must be committed to taking all the actions in your plan. If there is any part of the plan that you’re not sure you are willing to do, you’re probably going to fail. Why? Because you’re not committed to the plan…or to achieving your goal.

So, keep a positive outlook on this, and make a real commitment to succeeding. Commitment is the first word represented by the word “change,” and that’s good because the commitment to your goal is really about the first step to succeeding in reaching it.

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Over the next few weeks I’m going to be writing posts about this “change” thing. To do that, I will be addressing six topics; one for each letter in the word change. My goal in this series of posts is to help you focus on six things that will move you toward your goals.

Here’s what the letter represents:

C—Commitment

H—Help

A—Action

N—Negative (get rid of it!)

G—Get Excited

E—Execution

As we explore these six topics, we will see how these things are needed if you are going to reach a goal. As time goes by, I will also expand on them in more length in some articles. As the articles are published, the links will be added to this blog under the “Published Articles” heading.

I hope these posts help you in your journey. Please feel free to comment or ask questions if you want!

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