How to Achieve What Matters Most to You

When it comes to achieving what matters most to you, one of the best ways to set yourself up to succeed is to focus on the key factors that will help you deliver specific results successfully. Knowing what those factors are can make the difference between success and failure.

Here are three of the most important ones to focus on. No matter what it is you want to achieve, applying these three things will give you strong foundations on which to build the outcomes that matter most to you in your life and work.  

Design it

Design thinking and design strategies are the first steps. The reason for that is because a design approach focuses on multiple aspects of what it takes to achieve a specific result and what might get in the way. That information will enable you to put the right things in place to set yourself up to succeed. Some of the focus areas to include in the design phase include:

• Create a vision and definition of success for your ideal outcome. Be as specific as you can. The reason it is so important to be as specific as possible is because the more specific your vision is the more specific your goals will be; the more specific your goals are the more specific your actions plans will be, and the more specific your action plans are the more specific your results will be. 

• Identify factors that will set you up to succeed with achieving your vision of your ideal outcome. Assess things like what resources you will need; what you need to learn; what you need to start doing more of; what you need to start doing less of; what boundaries do you need to put in place for yourself and others; what support do you need, what structure and framework will support you, what you need to put in place etc. 

• Conduct a risk assessment and contingency planning exercise. When you want to achieve a specific result or shoot for a new goal, it is useful to consider what could go wrong, hold you back, get in the way, or sabotage you. Identifying those things up front means you can proactively consider what you will do if those things happen and put things in place to avoid them or to at least reduce their impact should they occur. Consider what setbacks, obstacles, or challenges could come up and proactively prepare for them. Know what you will do in a worst case scenario. Having a contingency plan is your safety net. 

• Research as much as possible. This will help you uncover valuable information that will help with decision making and making informed choices as you move forward.    

Once you have gone through the design phase, start molding what came out of it into a strategy, goals, and action plan to move you forward.

Change Agility

Many people find creating change hard. But in order to achieve the results you desire you are going to have to change something. So, your level of change agility is critical. What I mean by change agility is your ability and the speed with which you adapt and implement necessary changes. There are two areas of change agility to consider:

1. Your personal change agility levels. It is important to identify and address the personal factors that might get in your way. For example, maybe it is fear, lack of confidence, self-doubt, imposter syndrome, limiting beliefs, negative mindset, etc.  These sorts of things can hold you back, keep you stuck, and stop you from achieving what matters most to you. Identify what yours are and deal with them. Assessing your personal change agility level and taking action to improve it will make sure you aren’t getting in your own way as you move forward.  

2. Logistical change agility – to create specific results, you need to be able to effectively identify and implement the logistical changes that will need to happen to achieve them. What I mean by logistical changes are the tangible, practical tasks that need to be done to achieve a specific result. Identify the tasks that need to be done to achieve the specific results you want to achieve and figure out how you will make those happen. How effective you are at doing this will make a big difference to your outcomes and how long it takes to achieve it. 

Assess your change agility level for both personal and logistical factors required to achieve the specific results you desire. Use your assessment of these areas to work on improving them. Your change agility level could be the deciding factor on whether you achieve what matters most to you or not.    

Develop behaviours and habits that will achieve specific results

You can have the best strategy, goals, and actions plans in the world and still not achieve what matters most to you. That is because, you are the one that needs to implement those things and make them happen. If you don’t have the right behaviours and habits that will achieve specific outcomes, then you are sabotaging your own progress and results. A way to avoid this pitfall is to do the following:

• think about the specific outcomes you want to achieve and ask yourself what behaviours and habits would be required to achieve that. 

• Then conduct an audit on what your current behaviours and habits are and see where the gaps are.  

• Use the outcome of that audit to start working on developing, nurturing, and fostering the specific behaviours and habits that will set you up to succeed with achieving specific results.

The bottom line:

The results that matter most to you won’t happen by chance. They happen by having a practical process that integrates design strategies, creating change, and having the right behaviours and habits to achieve specific results.

Creating a process to implement these three things will set you up to succeed with achieving what matters most to you in your life and work.