When it comes to personal or business self improvement many people overlook a number of “easy ways” to get ahead. No, this does not mean one should take shortcuts or look for gimmicks that promise success. What it means is that often self improvement and goal reaching needs to be based in basic realistic methods so as to get ahead.
Remember the SMART mnemonic? Goals have to be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound.
For example, if you want to lose twenty pounds do you like that it would be wise to try and drop the weight in one week or four months? How about seeing your business grow 20%? Can it grow overnight or over several weeks or, more accurately, what would be the more probably outcome?
So, when it comes to setting up a goal look at where you currently are and what next logical step would be considered an improvement. Upon doing this, you can then strategize a realistic means of meeting such a goal. As such, it becomes critical to define realistic goals that are attainable and can be acquired with sustained effort over a period of time. This is a logical approach and more often then not it is logic that is always more reliable than being an unrealistic day dreamer.
A Side Note:
About a couple of days I wrote on this blog about my plan to run(walk) 1 mile daily on my treadclimber. Given who I am what I do 1 mile is certianly realistic. So far I had been able to keep up with my promise, but for some reason if I miss a day.. my plan is to make it up for it by incrementally running a little more every new day, till I complete that one mile.
You may very well say 1 mile is nothing…agreed but its much better than doing nothing and certainly I plan to increase it once I develop the discipline.