Two weeks ago I wrote about how to set goals you can actually accomplish this year (to read that post click here). And last week I wrote about turning your dreams into goals (to read that post click here). I want to continue that thought with one last post on goals. This week I want to talk about a few ways you can increase the odds of accomplishing your goals.

Now that you’ve taken the time to make your dreams into smart, manageable goals. What next?

Persistence

Accomplishing your goals takes persistence. It takes an attitude of confident, patient, consistency. To accomplish any difficult goal you have to refuse to take no for an answer. And you have to do it over and over again.

Setting the goal in January is the easy part. Persisting through the dog days of summer when your original plan seems a mile away is another story altogether.

I love Webster’s definition of persistence, which is “to continue steadfastly or firmly in some state, purpose, or course of action, especially in spite of opposition.”

Accomplishing your goals takes the rare ability to persist when the going gets tough.

One way to persist is to…

Focus on the process and not the results

Focusing on results can leave you discouraged and upset when things don’t turn out exactly as you expected or as fast as you wanted. But you often cannot control the results of your hard work. What you can control is the effort you put into the process.

For example, you might set a goal for yourself of losing 10 pounds in three months. So you set up a diet and exercise program and you get to work. You step on a scale after every week of workouts to track your progress but after one month you have only lost two pounds. At that point it would be easy to get frustrated and want to quit. But the truth is you cannot control how quickly you lose weight. But what you can control is your workout each day and the food you eat. If you keep eating correctly and keep working out regularly the results will come.

Focus on the process. Focus on the day-to-day effort you put into accomplishing your goals and the results will take care of themselves.

But you can only focus on the process when you…

Make time

Everyone has the same amount of time in their day. God gave everyone a 24 hour day. Rich people don’t have more and poor people don’t get less. Smart people can’t make time go slower and celebrities can’t add more minutes to their hour. Fit people don’t get an extra hour each day to workout. They don’t. All of us get 24 hours each day to spend as we see fit.

The things you spend your time on are the things you prioritize. If you don’t have time for something then that means you aren’t prioritizing that particular thing. You can’t make more time in your day but you can change your priorities.

Time is life, don’t waste it.

So make time to focus on the process of persistently chasing your goals.