Can you remember when you have achieved your last goal? It felt good, didn’t it? What can you learn from your previous successes that will help you with your current and future goals?
Your Last Goal Achievements
You might think your future goals are more important than your past ones. And, maybe your present activities are even more important. You are right. Nevertheless, looking back at your previous goal achievements can help you with both, your present activities as well as your future goals. Why?
Learn From The Past
First of all you can learn not only from your failures but also from your successes. It is even better to learn from your own successes and from the failures others have already made. But this is a different story.
Learning from your previous goal achievements means that you need to review your success. What worked well? What can still be improved? Basically, it is an optimization process. When you look back at multiple goal achievements you might recognize some patterns.
The following questions can help you:
- What helped me last time? This can be resources like tools, books, your environment, etc.
- Who helped my last time? This can be your friends, mentors, colleagues, etc.
- What was my mindset? Did I know I can do it?
- How did you feel, for example calm and confident?
- What did my plan look like? Did I have a written goal statement?
- What of the above can I improve and how?
- Were there any obstacles and how can I prevent them next time?
In short you can think about all your strengtheners and weakeners and apply them to your current and future goals.
You Can Do It
The second aspect is the realization that you can achieve goals. Especially if you have big, ambitious goals the way can be long and bumpy with many obstacles and setbacks.
Looking ahead might still motivate you but it might also feel overwhelming. In this case it helps to look back at your past successes, at the goals and milestones you already have achieved. This will motivate you and help your “I can do it” mindset.
Apply Your Learnings
Now it is time to apply your learnings to your new and future goals. A good time to do so is in your review sessions. When you plan your current and future goals, also take some time to look back and to learn from your past goal achievements.
Would you like to learn more? In our free VidaGoals eBook (PDF and ePub) you can find information, tips and tricks all about goal setting. And our free VidaGoals android app can help you with finding, planning and reviewing your goals on the go.