In today’s post, I will guide you to reverse-engineer your goal to achieve success. I will share the action steps you need to take when you reverse-engineer your goal, as well as the mindset and identity shifts you need to start making to create the result you want.
This goal-setting approach is meant to help you take focused action today.
When you set a goal, you want to have an effective action plan and strategy that is going to help you achieve that goal. So often, you quit your goals too soon because you don’t have a strategy and a simple and effective plan that you can commit to in the long term. You’re struggling to stay consistent. You don’t have an empowering mindset that helps you move beyond those obstacles that inevitably show up. So you quit.
But still, the goals that you set are important to you. So you keep setting the same goals with the exact same approach. Naturally, you keep quitting right about at the same time that you have quit the time before. You do it while it’s easy, but when obstacles come up – you quit.
Today, I’m going to walk you through the entire process to reverse-engineer your goal which means that you start by gaining clarity on what your end goal is, and then you work backward. You’ll go all the way to today so that you can take inspired action right now. Also, you’ll know what you need to do tomorrow, the next month, the month after that, all the way to your deadline.
Get your notebook to plan and journal on these questions, and let’s dive in.
1) Where do you want to be 12 months from now?
First, we’re starting with the big picture. Don’t be afraid to set big, crazy goals. I believe that you can achieve small goals and big ones. It’s all about your strategy and mindset.
As a coach, I love working with my clients who have crazy goals that they are embarrassed to talk about with other people because other people would tell them, ‘’What? You’re insane! You’re not going to achieve that in the next 12 months!’’
But I’m telling you – there is no goal that is too unrealistic. If you commit to taking action on it, staying consistent, doing what needs to be done in order to achieve that goal, and having a mindset that is going to support you all the way through – you can achieve anything.
Recently, I came across a business coach that hit 6 figures in her first month of business. That’s crazy, right? I’m sure everyone told her it was impossible. Well… Until she achieved it.
I was always told that you need to have a 9-to-5 job, a stable job with a stable income. And I thought that was true until I started earning more with my blog and my life coaching business than with any 9-to-5 job I ever had.
So I’m telling you, there is no goal that is impossible. You get to decide what’s possible for you.
I’m not really a fan of the SMART goal-setting technique where it’s recommended to set realistic goals.
What’s realistic?
There are people that have set a goal to lose 5 pounds in 5 months, which seems quite realistic. But they haven’t achieved that because they weren’t consistent. They didn’t take action. Their mindset wasn’t in it.
Even though that goal sounds realistic, they still haven’t achieved it. Because the strategy and the mindset weren’t there.
So who’s to tell you what’s realistic and what’s not? If you want to set a big goal, set a big goal.
2) What do you need to do to achieve that? (reverse-engineer your goal)
With this question, we are onto something.
For example, yesterday I created my new vision board. But until I asked myself this question, what do I need to do to achieve that, it was only a desire. It was only a vision. Something that looked good. Something that sounded good.
When you set a new goal, you need to know what needs to be done to achieve it. You need to do something about that goal. Otherwise, it’s just one of your desires.
For this question, you’re going to find many different people having many different approaches. For me, I don’t want you to do a massive brain dump of things that you think might get you there.
You don’t want to get overwhelmed with 30 steps to achieve your goal. What I do with my private coaching clients is setting 3-5 key action steps that are going to guarantee their success.
What’s the point of having an action step on that list if that action step is not going to guarantee the results that you want? It’s just a waste of time.
And that’s what happens so often. You spread yourself too thin and then you burn out in the end. It makes you feel frustrated, angry, and disappointed because you are focusing on all the wrong things.
You have a to-do list with 20 points that’s just making you feel overwhelmed.
And I’m sure you have a job, you have your social life, a family, maybe you’re in a relationship, maybe you have a pet to take care of. You have so many different areas of your life and you just can’t work extra hours on your goal every single day ticking off each one of those 20+ action steps.
You need to simplify your approach. When you have more than 10 action steps, you will end up doing nothing.
I’ve definitely been there. My clients have been there. They bombard themselves with this massive to-do list with all the ideas that come to mind. And then your mind starts telling you that your goal is so hard to achieve. It tells you that there is so much time and effort needed and that you won’t be able to keep doing this in the long term.
When you have a goal, you want to have action steps that you are able to do in the long term.
When you have 20 tasks every single day that you need to tick off, you won’t be able to continue doing that in the long term. For the first 3 days, it’s going to be easy because the excitement and motivation are there.
But after the third day, you’re just going to quit. Why? Because your approach was wrong. You added unnecessary steps to your goal, which made you quit. This is exactly what my clients tell me on our consultation calls before we start working together.
And then, of course, that goal matters to you. So you will set the same goal two months from now, but nothing will change because your mindset is going to stay the same, your approach is going to stay the same, your action steps, your strategy… All the same.
Secretly you will hope that this time something will be different.
Nothing is going to be different, because you’re not changing anything. You’re setting the same goal, in the same way, doing the same things, and hoping that something is going to turn out differently.
When you create an action plan that has so many steps in it, you are going to quit before you start. When you see this huge list of action steps that you need to take every single day, you’re going to quit before you start.
Has this ever happened to you? You set a goal, you decide on 20 action steps that you need to do every single day, then you install a few apps to help you throughout the way and you start thinking to yourself, ‘’Oh my God, this is too much.’’ And you just quit. And you haven’t even started yet.
My approach is to focus only on the key action steps that you’re able to commit to in the long term.
What’s non-negotiable?
What’s going to guarantee you the result you want?
Let go of all the rest.
3) Who do you need to be in order to achieve your goal?
So often you focus on the action steps and strategies that will get you to your goal. But in order to achieve your goal, you need to step into the next version of yourself.
Related: How Does the Best Version of You Eat Her Breakfast?
This is the version of you that has already achieved your goal. Where you are now, that’s one version of you. But in order to achieve your goal, you need to change that. Otherwise, you would have already achieved that goal. So it’s obvious that something needs to change.
For example, if you want to lose 20 pounds, you need to be a version of yourself that works out consistently. That’s a fact whether you like it or not. If you want to lose weight, you need to do some kind of physical activity. You might choose strength training at the gym, running, reformer pilates, or whatever physical activity you feel drawn to.
But you need to step into the identity of the version of you that has already achieved that goal.
When you imagine yourself 12 months from now, having your goal achieved, obviously you have changed some things to get there. So what are those things?
Who did you become in the process?
Another example, let’s say that now you’re a smoker and you want to quit smoking. You want to be a nonsmoker. In order to do that, you need to be a version of yourself that never buys cigarettes. Simple as that. Are you willing to do that? That’s the real question.
Here’s my own experience as an example. I used to be a smoker. A lot of times, I used to smoke two packs of cigarettes in one day. And I quit. I quit smoking more than 3 years ago. It happened overnight. I simply stepped into the identity of a version of myself who is a nonsmoker.
And that’s the thing about achieving your goals. It’s about who you become in the process. And if you want to change something, if you have a goal that seems impossible or too big, you need to be willing to make that change. The change always starts with you. You need to become the version of yourself that has achieved your goal.
If your goal requires confidence, you need to build that confidence. If it requires new knowledge, new skills, new habits, you need to be willing to develop them.
Otherwise, nothing will change. Otherwise, you will have the same vision board 5 years from now.
Are you willing to change something? Are you willing to step into the next version of yourself? Let go of the patterns that are not serving you anymore? Let go of the limiting beliefs and fears that are not serving you anymore? Are you willing to do that?
If you’re not willing to do that, then all those goals are just going to stay on your vision board.
4) What do you need to achieve in the next 6 months that will get you to your 12-month goal?
This is how you reverse-engineer your goal. You have a big goal that you want to achieve in the next 12 months. And now you split that bigger goal in half so that it’s more manageable.
Ask yourself, what steps can you take in the next 6 months that will help you achieve your 12-month goal?
For this question, you can continue asking yourself what do you need to achieve in the next five months? Three months, two months, one month, a week?
The purpose of this question is to split your goal and work backward which is how you reverse-engineer your goal.
Keep breaking your goal into smaller and smaller pieces until you come to today.
5) What are you going to do today to get closer to your goal? (reverse-engineer your goal to today)
What’s one needle-moving action step you can take today to get closer to your 6-month goal, which will then get you closer to your 12-month goal?
What do you need to do today?
What are you going to do today to get to the next small milestone?
When you reverse-engineer your goal and break down your bigger goal which is something you want to achieve in the next 12 months, you break it down so that you have a goal for the next two weeks.
And it becomes so simple.
What can you do today, that will get you closer to you goal that you have for the next two weeks? That 2-week goal is then going to get you closer to your 6-moth goal and to your big 12-month goal.
This is how you reverse-engineer your goal. It’s not overwhelming. In the beginning, we made sure that your action steps are the ones that are going to get you closer to your goal. Those are the action steps that are going to guarantee the results in the next 12 months.
From now on, the question you need to ask yourself every day is – what am I choosing today?
We make about 35,000 decisions every single day.
Our day starts with the decision to snooze or to get up right away. Then we repeat that decision-making process multiple times if we snooze. Then we make a decision on what playlist to listen to or what podcast to listen to. Whose Instagram story to watch first. Do I want to reply to this story? Hmm, maybe I could just drop an emoji to seem fun but still interested. Do I want to read the caption of this post I just liked? Naah, it’s too long. I’ll bookmark it for later. I mean, I know I’ll forget about it, but still… Ooh, do I want to share that quote on my Instagram story so that I get briefly inspired again in an hour when I check who watches my stories?
It’s those mini decisions throughout the day that make your days.
And then your days make your weeks, your weeks make your months, your months make your years, and then that’s your entire life.
Your entire life is based on the decision that you make each moment.
So what decisions are you making? What are you choosing?
Decisions that you make today are going to be reflected back to you 12 months from now.
If you found this post helpful and you have a goal you want to achieve, I invite you to work with me. I coach my clients to achieve their goals while:
1) developing an empowering mindset so they don’t quit when limiting beliefs, fears, and insecurities show up
2) following a simple and effective action plan that guarantees success and reduces overwhelm
3) supporting them, guiding them, and holding them accountable through the entire process so that they don’t have to figure everything out on their own
Book your free consultation here so that we can get started with your goal. In your free consultation, we are going to talk about where you are now, where you want to be 6 months from now, and how to close that gap.
Until the next time,
Ivana
This blog post on how to reverse-engineer your goal was first published as a podcast episode on The La Ivana Podcast. Listen to the entire episode and subscribe for more motivational content here.
achieve your goals goal setting tips reverse engineer your goal
What a great post & thank you just the information I need to read today.