3 proven ways to achieve your goals

By AJ Agrawal for Inc.

It's sad to think how many people go their whole lives dreaming of goals that they will never hit. While many of us have aspirations we want to reach, few of us actually get to the final destination.

The main reason behind this is consistency. We lack the ability to stick through the changes we need to make to turn our visions into reality. This in part can be blamed on the way media portrays the successful. It's a common belief that some giant act of heroism is what catalyzes success to begin. In reality, this path to reach success is rare. For all the people who got lucky and hit a homerun his or her first time at bat, there are a million others who struck out and gave up.

Thus the true way to hit our goals is by working on them every damn day. Below, I'll go through 3 proven methods that will get you to your goals. This isn't some get rich quick scheme, or the type of advice you get from infomercials selling you the latest "Ab maker 3000." These are time-consuming and tedious habits that will get you to your goals the old fashioned way: through consistent and determined effort over a long period of time.

1. Focus on one habit to change and be consistent

The number one reason why people fail to hit their goals is because they don't keep up the routine they originally start. For instance, say you want to lose weight. Instead of going cold turkey, what if you just cut the ice cream sandwich at night. Let's say it's only 300 calories. You don't change anything but you just change that one tiny thing. By the end of a year, you just saved over 100,000 calories off your body.

This is a simple example, but it highlights how core consistency is to reaching your goals. Don't try and do a complete magical transformation overnight. Instead, focus on one thing, and execute it everyday for about 2 months. The change will lead to more and more habit changes, and soon you'll be well on your way to hitting your goal.

2. Track everything

From now on, write down everything throughout the day that you're doing in regards to the goals you set for yourself. If you want to get healthy, write down everything you're eating everyday. Let's say you're a business owner. Write down everything that you did to move your business forward.

By the end of the day, the results will surprise you. You'll be able to look at what you did for the business and realize that many of your activities were unnecessary. Tracking what we do has such a profound effect on us because it forces us to measure our progress through tangible metrics. We also are unable to forget the 2 hours of TV we watched or the 3-layer cheesecake we scarfed down. The key to getting to our goals is tracking what's holding us back and removing those distractions.

Click here to read more.