LoseWeight The secret ingredient for reaching goalsHow many of you had what you thought were realistic goals for your blog and failed to reach them? Were you able to understand why your blog didn’t hit the goals?

If you don’t know, let me tell you why: the number one reason why people fail to reach goals is because they did not have clear objectives.

Defining goals and objectives

First, let’s get this out on the table. Goals and objectives are not the same thing. Goals are broad, generic actions while objectives are narrow, specific actions.

In other words, goals are high-level. That means you need objectives to go along with those goals. These objectives need to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely) so you can act upon them.

So if someone’s goal is to lose 20 pounds, then his objectives could be do 60 minutes of cardio 6 days a week, consume no more than 1800 calories per day, and do not eat less than 3 hours before bedtime.

Setting goals

Let’s face it, setting goals for blogging is pretty easy. How many of these did you have?

  • Reach 100,000 Alexa ranking in 3 months
  • Obtain Google PageRank 3 in 6 months
  • Get 1000 total comments in 3 months
  • Get 500 email subscribers in a year
  • Earn $100/mo. income in 6 months

Some of those goals seem pretty lofty but they are all very achievable. Realistically though, most bloggers won’t come near those numbers. A handful will get close but only a few superstars will actually get there.

So what separates those superstars from everyone else? Uneducated or bitter people will blame dumb luck but the reality is that the former likely had specific actions that they performed on a regular basis. Those objectives helped them reach their goals.

OK, now be honest with yourself. The truth is, most people don’t even have time frames on their goals. How many of you had a goal like this?

  • Make $5000/mo.

That’s perfectly fine too. There are some purists who don’t even want to measure goals or have real numbers next to them. They’re OK with:

  • Be the best blogger in the x niche

Believe it or not, the level of detail in the goal isn’t all that important. Regardless of how specific you want to create your goals, you can’t get there without actions that you can perform. The objective is the missing ingredient!


Creating objectives

Goals are strategic in nature. No one can create success from strategy alone. Therefore, you will need tactics for the goals; those are called objectives, which are actions that can be accomplished.

Look at these examples of well-written objectives:

  • Write 5 new articles per week, each having at least 200 words.
  • Read every comment on own blog and respond whenever appropriate.
  • Visit 50 related blogs per week.
  • Leave 25 quality comments on related blogs per week.
  • Visit 5 related forums per week.
  • Write a guest post for another blog per month.
  • Create an ebook by the six month mark.

See the difference? Those are all specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. You are very much in control on whether or not those are completed. Like it or not, by creating objectives, you are making yourself accountable.

Monitor goals and objectives closely

Once you have defined your course of action, you need to pay attention to them. That means you need to monitor how you’re performing and make adjustments as necessary.

For instance, I had a goal of writing a new article every weekday for the first three months. After I hit the 90-day mark, I changed my goal from creating a presence to building more of a sense of community.

As a result, one thing I had to do was tweak one of my objectives. I decided to reduce the number of posts from five to three per week. I felt I had enough of a foundation of content that I’d rather give more time for my regular visitors to read each article.

Time will tell if I actually reach that goal. I just know that my objective of writing three posts per week can easily be met.

Having no objectives means you’re not serious

The bottom line is that there’s no magic behind reaching goals. It requires a methodical means to get to your destination. The secret to success is simply creating objectives so you actually have tasks to accomplish.

In my mind, there are two reasons why people don’t have objectives:

  1. They don’t know what objectives are or how to create good objectives
  2. They want to give themselves an excuse for failure

After reading this article, the first reason no longer applies. That means if you don’t create objectives, you are essentially giving yourself a way out.

Just know that very few people become successful by accident. If you’d rather bet the farm on that, then godspeed. However, if you prefer to take destiny in your own hands, then setting goals and creating objectives is absolutely the way to go.

What are some of your goals and objectives for your blog?

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