Worried about not making your 2021 goals? You should be. Famously 80% of new year’s resolutions fail. I’m sure that’s no surprise to you. How about if I could give you a scientifically proven way to make sure that you’re in the 20% of the achievers? Pretty good, right? Well then, read on.

Procrastination

Yes, it’s probably one of the reasons why you’re not going to get your big 2021 goal. After all, 88% of employees admitted to doing it. What’s so special about you? This is why this study about reversing the goal-stopping beast of procrastination was so fascinating to me. In a study published last December, they found that texting university students twice a day and asking them to answer these 4 questions caused a significant reduction of procrastination.

“How would successful people achieve this goal?”

Question number one to ponder was to get the student to visualize how people who have gotten the goal accomplished actually did it. For example, my goal is to make more than my 2019 revenue before the covid hit the fan. So when I think about how successful people have achieved pre-pandemic growth, it’s because they’ve pivoted and haven’t given up. That’s exactly what I’ve been doing.

“How will I feel if I don’t complete the goal?

Pondering the failure of your 2021 goal will definitely get you in touch with the pain. So this question is a very deliberate way to light a fire under you. In my case, if I don’t achieve that level of growth, I’ll be angry at myself, embarrassed because I’ve declared it to any woman, man, child, dog who would listen and probably be a little sad that it was taking so long to happen.

“What is one thing I can do to make sure I finish on time?”

This procrastination-busting-question hones you in on the most important piece of the puzzle. It makes you think about the make or break element of what you need to do to get to your goal. Again, in my case I have to establish new funnels in the online world to get to have more sales conversations with bigger businesses. That is the singular biggest thing for my goal to come true.

“What is the first (or next) thing I need to do?”

Finally, the last question posed to the students in the study was this one. Identifying the next step. Basically it’s because goals don’t happen until action steps are taken and well, it all starts with planning your next action.

So if you set up auto-reminders to pop up twice a day, every day for a year and you answer these 4 questions, your chances of crushing your 2021 goals will be that much higher.

Good luck, my friends.

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