Step 1: Define Your Major Life Goals

First, you’ll want to come up with a clear description of your life goals. All goals must conform to the SMART principles (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-Oriented) otherwise they’ll be so vague that you won’t be able to know when you’ve achieved them and your subconscious will ‘give up’ on them.

Life goals don’t need to be limited to one – have as many as you want but don’t have so many that you get overwhelmed. I have 10 Life Goals which revolve around Income, Health, Property, Business, Strategy, Product Development, Education, Environment, IT and Spiritual.

If you have more goals than you feel comfortable with then work out whether any of them can be combined.

Write all your goals down and put them somewhere prominent on the wall, like your bathroom, and read them at least once a day.

Step 2: Break Your Goal into Major Milestones

These are the big steps you’ll take for this year that contribute to your overall goal. Again they need to be SMART and you need to write them all down clearly.

Some of my goals only have one major milestone. Some of them have eight. It all depends on the facets and complexity of that milestone and goal.

Step 3: Break Your Major Milestones into Tasks

For each Major Milestone ask yourself three questions.

1. What’s the first step I need to do next in achieving this milestone?

2. Is there a step before step one that’s required? If no, move to question 3. If yes then the answer becomes the new step 1.

3. Once I’ve achieved step 1, what’s the next thing I need to do to achieve this milestone

4. Once I’ve achieved step 2, what’s the next thing I need to do to achieve this milestone

Write each answer under the milestone heading in order to record your next 3 linear steps for each major milestone.

Step 4: Timeline Your Tasks

For each task as yourself these questions

1. When do I need to achieve this task in order to support my milestone and/or goal?

2. By what date can I realistically achieve this task and prepared to commit to it?

3. In order to achieve this result when do I need to start on this task?

Hopefully the answer to the first two questions is at least the same, or you’re prepared to achieve the task earlier than you ultimately need to in supporting your goal’s timelines. The third question is for step 5.

Step 5: Schedule Your Tasks

Put all the tasks, and the start dates from question 3 in order for earliest to latest to create your task schedule.

Step 6: Commit Time Daily

Review your task schedule every day and work on your list as per your commitment to yourself! It can sometimes feel like there’s a lot to get done so just focus on the next task at hand. And if you’re still overwhelmed then use the 10 Minute Rule: commit to spending just 10 minutes on the next task, after which if you’re not getting anywhere you can stop. But chances are you’ll be in the swing of things and will go full steam ahead!

Step 7. Review Your Task Progress Weekly

This is your checkpoint to keep you on track. Spend at least 30 minutes at the same time each week to review your progress and make any minor adjustments to your timelines or add new steps. If you keep shifting tasks timelines out then ask yourself why. Maybe it’s that you’re goals aren’t that important to you after all. But if you keep justifying it’s because you’ve had a busy week, or blaming someone else then that’s not on. It’s up to you to take responsibility for your actions and your outcomes. There’s no one to blame but you!

Step 8: Celebrate Wisely

It’s critical that you celebrate each task with something small (like a ‘high 5’ or 10 minute relaxation session) as long as it’s not going to take you off track from your goal. So if you want to lose weight then celebrating with a cup cake is not the answer.

For major milestones it’s important that you celebrate on a bigger scale – a new CD, DVD, going out somewhere special, etc. This will reinforce your subconscious recent behaviour of supporting your overall goals, and over time your goal achievement will continue to become less of a struggle because your subconscious will continue to support you.

There’s a caveat though – if you fail to celebrate then your subconscious will start working against you because it just wants to have fun and is not really that interested in helping you achieve your goals unless there’s something in it for them!