“Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow,” said Mark Twain. Until recently, this summed me up perfectly: I spent a lot of my time thinking about reasons why I couldn’t do something straight away, and by the time I’d come up with all the excuses, there was no time left anyway. I felt the years dwindling away and I still had the same dreams, and didn’t feel any closer to achieving them.

But when I finally put my foot down and told myself “FIX THIS!” I found it really was possible to change. Setting goals – big and small – is a good start, and then you need to find ways to reach them, by using action plans and rewards. Lastly, by regularly reviewing and revising your goals, you’ll be much more likely to get to your dream life. Why shouldn’t you live the life you want?

Set Your Goals

You need something to aim for. Probably, you need quite a few things to aim for. Think about areas of your life you’re not satisfied with, and consider how you’d like these to be different in the future. And then go a step beyond this, and visualize how your ideal life would look. Stay a little realistic – don’t expect to be a billionaire by winning the lottery, for example – but do imagine yourself living in the kind of house you’d like best, working at a job you enjoy, and spending your free time doing all those things you’ve always wanted to do.

Now, the nice thing is that most of these things are achievable. It’s just that most of us don’t get organized and focused enough to actually achieve them. But that doesn’t mean you have to be like most of us. Experts suggest that with clear, written goals, ordinary people can achieve a lot more than those without goals, even if the latter group are more talented. It’s all about focus!

There’s endless advice out there in books and on websites about how to set your goals, and the best method varies between individuals. Enter “goal setting” into an internet search engine or browse in your bookshop and every man and his dog will be giving you advice on how to do it. Let me help out by simply telling you what worked best for me.

Lifetime Goals

This is the big picture. I wrote a list of all the dreams I’d ever had about how my life would end up. These included things like “I’ll publish a novel”, “I’ll speak fluent German”, “I’ll travel around Australia” and “I’ll live in a house near the beach”. Some of these could take years, or might not even be possible until later in life. No problem. I put everything on the list. Don’t be afraid – you can write down your most secret dreams too – nobody else is going to read this, unless you ask them too.