How to achieve your goals?

A thinking framework to achieve your long-term goals.

Today morning when I was reading, I read something and started to wonder, ‘how do I actually know in life, what I am doing is the right or even if it is on the right path.

It is a demanding question to think about before your first sip of coffee. But I really want to figure out a way to find an answer to this.

For instance, will the job you are currently on, take you to the path you desire to be, or a habit you have included in your daily routine, make you any better?

How do we achieve the long-term goals?

Yes, I understand you screaming from the other side saying, it is all part of the plan, and enjoy the process and don’t judge on day-to-day growth. But for a serious over-thinker and borderline perfectionists like me, it’s really difficult to proceed further without having a peek at the end goal.

We, humans, are terrible at long-term thinking, our brains are wired in a way that we think and worry more about things that are in short term rather than the long term. We worry about not getting a salary at the end of the month but not about planning for retirement.

One reason is the fact we see future us as strangers, if you are a fan of HIMYM, then you would know Ted and Marshal fighting about the apartment and letting the future selves worry about the decision.

So when the brain doesn't help us in taking a decision, what can we do?

What I found throughout the journey, is a thought process that includes thinking in both the short term and long term.

For example, I want to get healthy and have a fit body. This by nature is a long-term goal and isn't achievable in a day or two. So it requires hope and dedication.

So what I have figured out is, when you start exercising, have the long-term goal in mind, that is how amazing you would look in a few weeks or months.

But the issue is this view of the future starts to fade in few days, that is when you change the mindset to short-term thinking, just think about finishing the current day's workout.

When things get hard in the future mode of thinking, you focus on the present and when the present is hard you shift your thought to the future mode.

And bit by bit, and with continuous effort, you start to see the result for your process. And that would guide you all the way to home.