When it comes to being productive, the most successful people have great wisdom while the rest have like hundreds of excuses. For those bent on living a meaningful life and seeing themselves progress in their career or business, they’re mostly seen as people with clear goals and planned actions. On the other hand, there seems to be so many issues and concerns for the unsuccessful ones. Mostly, they’d take it on fear of the untried and the unknown, their competitions are just too strong or their actions just aren’t good enough. Be it at work, in business or simply the effort to lose weight, people never seem to lack an excuse.

Now don’t take it against me! I’ve always said we all come to a point in life when we just want to do nothing. Ahhh, the glories of watching TV for hours or just reading three books in a day. Besides, who doesn’t love not being tired or stressed from work?

But for the successful people, even the lazy moments have a goal. It’s either to take a rest or relax before more fruitful undertakings are pursued. The lazy ones, however, just want to live the stationary, unproductive life, and seeing very little value in working or making themselves useful. There is clear line between restful laziness and the habitual routine of not doing anything meaningful. Suffice it to say, there’s pride within me about being on the best side.

This article is meant for you and others who just haven’t had come across a strong poke about setting goals. More so, I’ve made this much simpler than the usual goal setting articles if only to start at the very core of what’s keeping you from living with a purpose.

Now the question is: Are you ready to admit you need this?

No? Don’t worry. You can come back later, dude.

Yes? OK, let’s get to work. Read on and learn the simplest steps on goal setting for lazy people.

1. Identify what you really want from life. People who have dreams of a better future are likely to know how to achieve them. It’s very much the whole idea of goal setting, actually. Know what you want in life and from life and take it from there. The one big thing you want must be your own positive vision of how you want to live ahead. Like what you want to become in the next twenty or thirty years. For some, it’s about being able to get a degree or certification from a cooking academy and get a stable career; for others, it’s simply about leading a healthier, active and independent life.

Make sure whatever you want in life is defined solely by your core desires. In short, what really makes you happy and whole as a person. It should bring you contentment and peace, and give you higher self valuation. At the same time, this one big thing you want must be very specific, doable or realistic and within your inner powers and potential to achieve.

2. Identify what’s keeping you from setting goals and actions. Once you know what it is you want, look back and know what has kept you from setting such goal. With this step, you learn about the negative forces and find means to defeat them. Most of the time, these forces are about finding short-lived fun more attractive than working hard. Or it’s usually about getting used to a life where others fend for your needs. Some fear the let-down of goals or consider themselves unfit to achieve any goal at all. There are people, too, who actually don’t set goals because of the responsibility and imminent hard work that comes with it.

When you’d finally know what’s holding you back, decide to shift your mindset. Change the negatives to positives. Erase momentary enjoyment and dependence to lasting happiness and being independent. If you feel the lack of will or skill to accomplish anything, equip yourself and be fully capacitated to achieve the goal. Take responsibility and consider it a power. With a changed mindset about goal setting, you have a meaningful destination and purposeful actions that entails it.

3. Identify the actions you need to take. Obviously, the first step would be in knowing what to do about your goals. This calls for action, right? Now list down the things you need to do to succeed at the endeavor. Include the specific skills you need to reinforce, as well as areas you might have to start learning. Remember that once you’ve set your goals in life, there will be discoveries about what you can and cannot do. Set your actions to fit and don’t stop just because there’s something you don’t know. Instead, focus on the things that you are and you have, and could be boosters to achieve your goal.

Also include the set of tools or resources that would help you in the process. Would you need a new PC to start your writing career? Or do you need to get a dog trainer’s certification? Listing down the helpful aids would make easier the action-planning activities. Just don’t forget, not all things are possible within your power. You’d need other people and some objects or materials that could help you out. As you plan for your actions or steps toward your goal, knowing all these means you’re getting good company.

4. Identify the few most important and immediate actions. Again, you really not need to accomplish your goals overnight. But with your needed actions all listed down, it’s not getting easier, huh? To make it even enjoyable and motivational, choose a few tasks from your list that calls for immediate action. Most of the time, people find the long list overwhelming and this busts their drive to pursue goals. But when you just choose two to four actions, they become excited to get it all accomplished.

In deciding which actions need to be done first, it would help if you rank everything according to their impact, urgency and ease. The more important and pressing an action should fuel the drive within you. If they are easy to do, then it quickly gives you that sense of pride of being able to do it! So don’t get caught in the huge waves of new surprises on your first steps toward you goal; swim with the flow most of the time and feel good even if you’re swimming against the current.

5. Identify the set of tasks to do for a certain period. When we do things in smaller batches, they’re readily easier to accomplish. Especially because you’re new at this, you must chunk down all the major tasks to avoid being overloaded physically and mentally. You could choose the specific tasks for the week or the day, and then do them right away. With this simpler method, you can actually enjoy each completion a few times over instead of waiting for months to see developments.

What is more important at this point is that you do these chunked tasks right away. Procrastinating would mess up the rest of your planned actions, and then become huge disappointments that further lead to a big setback. So if you want to truly achieve your goal AND celebrate each one, do small things and get them done well.

6. Identify the things that keep you lazy. Pretty soon, you’d get the hang of doing things that sets you apart from the really lazy people. You are, after all, busy and driven, even happily excited with the new turn of your life. But what if suddenly you’re pulled to the old you who just want to get the best in life without a goal or purpose? This is then the point where you’re pulled by two different forces: the one you want to be and the other that you’d like to be cut from.

At this junction, you must know the things that made you the lazy person from long ago. There’s be plenty of reasons, mind you. Try listing them down and attach every excuse you made then just to be inactive. Better yet, with each “lazy hour” items, highlight it with the “new and active” activity you’re doing. When you identify an important item, you then realize there’s no point of going back to those lazy hours because you’re doing something meaningful.

Also, it’s important that you know the hours and activities that tend to be pushing you to be unproductive. If it’s the internet or unending parties, know how to avoid them by putting right away the fruitful activities you have in your plan of action. Always have the positives placed at every negative force. Surely, you’d know that the track you’re in is much better than where you came from.

7. Identify the people who will help you out. With your decision to change and course to a goal, you’d be surprised with the extent of other peoples’ happiness over it. Not many would speak negatively about you being lazy, dependent and undirected. But most of them would have congratulatory words for sure. Still, you’d need a few people who can definitely help you out along the way. These people truly care for you and wish to see you achieve something meaningful and important.

Once you’ve identified these people, share with them your fears and hesitations. Ask them as well how you’d want to be helped. Better yet, involve them in a periodic assessment and small celebrations of every notable achievement in the whole process.

Wow! You’ve read all the way to this point? Whoever told you that you’re “lazy” have just been proven wrong! Moreover, once you’ve practiced all these seven steps to goal setting and project a whole new productive you, they’d better watch out, huh! Give it six months to a year – you’re going to be a notably changed person. Surprise them! Act now and feel good about yourself. You’re lazy, no more!

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Related Resources

A Millionaire’s 9 Question Guide to Goal Setting

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This article was contributed by Arina Nikitina, a blogger who shares practical goal setting, motivation, and productivity tips at http://www.arinanikitina.com