1. Make realistic and achievable goals. Don’t pledge to climb Mount Everest or go from a size 2XL to a Small when you know it’s never going to happen.
2. Write down what you want to achieve. This helps when you lose track of where you want to be, and at what stage of your goal you want reached at what time.
3. Make a plan. For the tech savvy people, this could mean drawing up a big week by week table in Microsoft Excel with detailed daily activities. However, this isn’t necessary. Making a plan is as simple as scrawling some pointers on a piece of loose leaf paper and sticking it to the fridge. It doesn’t have to be a step by step, day by day roster. Just know what you want, and where you wish to be at which stage of the year. Make smaller goals to ultimately feed the big one. For example, “I want to lose one kilo this week”, rather than, “I want to lose 20 kilos in three months”.
4. Consult an expert. Don’t jump into the water with no idea what could be lurking underneath. You could take the advice from this article and use it, but there is no point if you don’t know the right way to do it. If your goal is to get fit and healthy, go to your local gym and speak to a personal trainer. If your goal is to quit smoking, speak to your doctor.
5. Stick to your guns! Rome wasn’t built in a day. But remember, it wasn’t built by someone who had the materials and tools in front of them, but tossed them aside.
6. Make time for yourself! Life gets in the way of our side projects at times. Things come up that we can’t control, and those less important projects get put on the back burner. Be organised. Make time in your day to focus on yourself, without neglecting life’s other responsibilities.
7. Don’t give up! Some goals are harder to achieve than others. Whenever you feel like giving up, look back at your original goal list. Remember how you felt when you made the list, and why you wanted to change your life.

Every goal in life is different. Some include kicking a ball through a net, or throwing a ball through a hoop. Others concern our emotional and mental fulfillment. These goals are either short term, intermediate or long term. My favourite thing to do when looking at my long term goals (5-10 years down the track) is to write them down on a piece of paper, fold it up and stick it in a frame behind my favourite photo. In doing this, you’re telling not just yourself, but also the universe what you want. It is such a treat years later to see what goals I have actually achieved from what I wrote down!