How to Achieve Your Goals - Secrets of Successful Resolutions

How to Achieve Your Goals
Motivation for Success & Leadership

Shifu Shawn Cartwright guides you Step by Step to realize your resolutions and turn goals into success. For the New Year and beyond.

So many New Year's Resolutions are abandoned by the end of January. Actually, this is true of most people's vision and goals. The key problem is that setting a goal is not enough. You actually need a step-by-step process to realize or achieve your goal.

Watch and get a complete breakdown of each step you need to realize your goals. Goals setting is critical for Entrepreneurs, Business People, Students, Leaders, Martial Artists, Kung Fu and Tai Chi Lovers. In short, everyone could benefit from setting SMART - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-Bound Goals.

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Welcome! Shawn and Drake here. Today we’re talking about are new year's resolutions.

That's everybody's favorite topic right now.

SHAWN: So, what’s your resolution?

DRAKE: to practice more.

SHAWN: To practice more.

All Right! This is good, so give this boy a hand.

But did you know that most people's new year's resolutions, they're done by the end of January?

I'm sure you know that there's research on this, but we don't need a scientific study to tell us that by the end of January new year's resolutions are mostly gone.

So, why is that?

It's exactly because of what Drake just said, “to practice more” -- more than what?

It's an undefined goal.

A lot of people answer the question “What's your new year's resolution?” With, “I'm going to get in shape”, or “I'm going to eat healthy”, or something like that.

These are ideas and you know ideas are not something that you can use directly.

So, how do you take an idea and turn it into something that actually gets results?

The concept is you have to take that idea and say “what does it mean?”

For example, what does it mean to practice more?

What does it mean to get in shape?

Does get in shape mean lose 30 pounds or 20 pounds or does get in shape mean build lean healthy muscle?

You've got to define it because something like “practice more” means different things to different people.

What, exactly are you going to practice more?

Are you going to practice Kung Fu more? Piano More? Writing good sales copy? What is it?

You know I teach Tai Chi, Qigong, Kung Fu, and meditation. I also have business clients as well that I work with in the heart based space.

It’s common that they’ll get to the new year and make a resolution like this. But they’ll actually do this type of goal setting throughout their entire life.

“I'm going to do something, I’m going to going to study this, or I’m going to practice meditation.” But never define the specific result and therefore never achieve their goals.

There’s a simple way to achieve your goal and it's to take this big idea and make it concrete.

Ask yourself the follow up questions “What does it mean? Why are you doing it?”

Take your “I’m going to practice more” and make it more concrete.

What specific martial art are you going to practice more?

DRAKE: Tai Chi and Shaolin

SHAWN: Okay, he's going to practice Tai Chi and Shaolin more. What does more mean? Let’s define it and break it down. How many days a week are you going to practice?

DRAKE: Every single day.

SHAWN: Okay, I like that. This is good so if you want to be good at something practice every single day.

Now here's the challenge with that. If you're not practicing at all and you say “my goal is I want to by the end of the year run a marathon.” (I'm not saying that's a good goal I'm just saying that might be your goal)

Now, if you want to run a marathon by the end of the year, does it make sense to go out January 2nd after you're you've cleared the hangover or whatever from your new year's eve, and run 26 miles?

DREAKE: No.

SHAWN: That’s right! That's a recipe for disaster.

You have to break it down step by step.

I love practicing every day but if you're not practicing at all or you're not running at all or you're not playing piano at all or you're not eating a healthy diet don't just blow it up.

You've got to say what's practical so maybe go out and run one mile or something like that.

Or maybe go from practicing once a week to practicing three times a week.

Ad once that's established then go to five and then go to seven times a week.

Practicing seven times a week is good. But have to vary that up if you're doing hard physical exercise so that your body has time to recover.

Now, we’ve established what specifically you’re going to do and then how often.

Next, how long are you going to practice? Are you going to run one mile a day? two miles a day? Are you going to start with one mile a day and then add a mile a week something like that?

How are you going to start your practice? If you never exercise maybe you just need to start with 30 minutes a day?

If you’re saying, “Shawn, I don’t have time.”

Well you probably have time to watch some silly video on YouTube or Netflix or whatever so why don't you take that time and invest in yourself once a day. I'll challenge you - that's my job.

 Now, you've got your specific goal. You’ve broken it down. You’ve got your concept of how often you're going to do it and how long.

The next step is you must decide what you're going to do. You can't just show up with no plan.

For example, with Tai Chi I know when I start I’m going to do a warm up that's going to take me five maybe 10 minutes. In the winter I spend longer on it.

Then I’m going to do some basic exercises (Silk Reeling, Jin Training, etc) and I’m going to do some form.

And then, if I have a crash test dummy I’m going to do some application.

I might even film that for you guys.

So, that's one thing that I might do.

Okay so what are you going to do? What's your plan when you actually decide to work out?

Now, there's one more critical step: you must schedule it!

Take your phone out and open the calendar. Put it in there with a reminder and as many reminders as you need so you must do it.

If you're good at ignoring your phone then you might need an accountability partner.

In the end you want to be accountable to yourself but maybe to get going you need some help. You need a workout buddy.

It's hard to have one in lockdown when this is being filmed but now we are online you can have a remote workout partner. There are a lot of things that you can do.

If you want to set yourself up for success in the new year or in any time of year for any part of your life take your big idea because we have tons of big ideas and make it concrete.

Break it down. Have a plan. Schedule it.

And then the last thing is do it. DO IT.

Think about what you really want to achieve and make a plan.

Make it's simple. Make it concrete.  Schedule it and do it.

Let me know what you decide to do because I’m excited to learn about your progress.

If you want to join us in our Tai Chi practice this year, get the Complete Chen Tai Chi Method here.