Want success? Know how you can strategically achieve success in your task.

Seeking success in your task? Success in any task is like you preparing food and you should be aware of recipe and procedure to prepare that food. Same is there required as recipe and procedure to successfully accomplish any task. The recipe for success is a complicated one. It requires lot of talent, a little bit of luck and a relentless work ethic but even those three ingredients won’t guarantee success. It takes one more thing, and it’s something that is often under estimated or ignored. The one thing you can’t accomplish goals without is clarity. While there are several types of clarity such as mental, physical, emotional, spiritual; mental clarity is the most vital when it comes to achieving an objective. The good news is that there are plenty of ways to obtain mental clarity. Practicing the methods below will jumpstart your productivity, declutter your life and allow you to make progress towards any goal that you set.

Mental Clarity – Mental clarity is when you are deeply acquainted with your highest self. When you truly understand who you are, what is important and the trajectory ahead. Mental clarity is when your life and vocation become an extension of your best, most authentic self. In other words, you have to know what you want and be willing to do everything in your power to reach that goal. The key is having a clear and concise goal. Any deviation in your plans will ultimately lead to negative outcomes, extra steps or complications while trying to reach that goal.

Setting Goals – There is a huge difference between setting a goal and wanting to accomplish something. Almost all set goals for themselves but very few reach till the accomplishment, rest give up due to frustration of not getting the goal completed. Percentage of the people who reach at the finishing point is very low, why do the rest strand? Here I would like to mention what is really required for someone who wants a goal achieved –

Brain mining – Grab a notebook and a pen. Put yourself in a quiet environment with no distractions. Write down literally everything you’ve ever thought about accomplishing. Do this for at least 30 minutes.

Organize – Look at everything you fetched down during your brain mining and organize each line item into a category. You must have written down various tasks which you want to accomplish, you must have set some targets which you want to achieve. Categorize those into short term and long term, e.g., having all luxuries in life is long term goal which cannot be accomplished overnight but cater to your immediate financial needs is your closest target which is required to achieve first otherwise to complete your long term goal first and ignoring the situation next step ahead might spoil both goals. Remember, a goal is supposed to be SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-based). During the organization process you’ll run into some not-so-smart things you wrote down. Ditch them. Focus on the good stuff.

Prioritization – As mentioned above, prioritization is required for a task which is required to accomplish first to make a smooth way for other tasks. Know the feasibility, time limit and impact of the task assigned by you to yourself. If you feel less feasibility, more time limit or less impact of particular task on your life, delay or dump the task.

The next step is when you bring everything together and start to work towards each goal.

Action plan – Now you have measured your goal’s feasibility, impact and time frame. Create an action plan for each item. This is when you apply the SMART characteristics to each of these important ideas. Think What? Why? When? Where? How? For example, if one of your general ideas was, “I want to get financially stable,” and you determined that the impact and feasibility were both high, this is when you specify what “financially stable” means to you want to meet your expenses with ease and be ready for future emergency needs. Remember “success” is subjective and specific to you. Your final goal may be, “I want to be financially stable before my wedding if you know wedding date. This goal is specific and measurable because you have an exact idea about your current financial condition and what else you need to achieve your goal. It’s attainable and relevant because you’ve given yourself sufficient time to do this and it directly affects your married life.

Lastly, the goal is time-based because you’ve given yourself a deadline. Now that you have a great goal in place, you can create a plan of attack. Calculate your income, expenses and per month savings required to achieve the target. If you feel that target is high than your current income, find ways to add more income in ethical way without impacting your physical or mental health. Find several ways which give good return on your savings. Track monthly progress; prepare a graph of growth and progression. When you will see getting closer to your goal, you become motivated but maintain the growth otherwise some people become negligent when they taste preliminary success.

Follow the same guidelines for all of the major goals from the top right portion of the graph. Turn the rest of the items into a to-do list with deadlines. You can apply the SMART guidelines to those as well, if time allows.

And finally, I would like to wind up this write up with the conclusion that what you need is a clear understanding of who you are, what you want to accomplish and how you’re going to accomplish it. When it comes to goals, any uncertainty even of most tiny point can lead you to failure on what you’re aiming for. Be strict and disciplined, but have fun and enjoy the journey.