When you desire to improve something about yourself, your situation or a relationship it is easier to accomplish your task, if you have a goal or set of goals. Your goal should clearly define what your prize would be for making the improvement. When you have a clearly defined prize, you will have motivation to achieve your goal. It is much easier to achieve a goal if there are smaller goals set up along the way. Achieving each smaller goal will build your confidence and increase your chances of achieving your ultimate goal. Having smaller goals is like the rungs on a ladder, they make reaching the top easier than jumping from the ground to the top of the ladder.

Top of the Ladder: Main Goal of losing 30 lbs.

5th rung: to lose 5 more pounds

4th rung: to lose 5 more pounds

3rd rung: to lose 5 more pounds

2nd rung: To lose 5 more pounds

1st rung: to lose 5 pounds

When you achieve each 5 lb. Goal, you reward yourself. The reward makes you feel good about your achievement and motivates you on to the next rung in the ladder. Each motivational reward takes you closer and closer to realizing your main goal of losing 30 lbs. Each of the smaller goals to not seem so far from the rung before and the next rung seems reachable from the rung below it. From the ground the top of the ladder seem far away, but the 1st rung seems within your grasp. It does not matter what type of self-improvement goal you have, the basics of setting goals will be the same. Setting smaller goals will make your main goal easier to achieve. The rungs of the ladder make it easy for your to measure your progress towards your main goal and you can look down and see how far you have come and look up to see how far you have yet to go before reaching the next rung and also the top of the ladder.

Calendars are a handy tool in managing those rungs. Keeping a daily and weekly calendar will let you know when to expect to reach each rung on the ladder, how fast to climb. Part of managing your goal, is to know what date you want to achieve your goal by. Microsoft Outlook has a wonderful setup in regards to calendars. The program is easy to use and can keep you organized as it reminds you of events on your daily, weekly and monthly calendars.

You will also need to have a good attitude about your goal and your ability to achieve it. Along with that attitude you will need to have the ability to go from planning to taking action. This is sometimes the toughest part of making self-improvements for some people. For some, talking about and planning self-improvements are much easier than taking the steps to achieve their goals. You must be willing to take that first step, and the next step and the one after that. Taking action can be like taking a risk. Good things come with some measure of risk and you have to be willing to take that risk if you are to gain the prize. The best way to motivate yourself is to set smaller goals, know your prize, and reward yourself upon achieving your smaller goals.

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