The most direct way to achieve a goal is to habituate the behaviors necessary to accomplish it. The way to habituate  behavior is to repeat the behavior enough times until it becomes second nature and automatic. It becomes a new habit!

How frequently should the new behavior be repeated? At least daily. Take action towards you goal everyday to build the habit of working towards your goal.

Seems simple right? Simple it is! But, easy it is not.

Business philosopher Jim Rohn is famous for saying “What is easy to do is easy not to do.” There are many factors that get between us and doing what is simple. Most of those factors are the old habits we are trying to break. Old habits that we have had for years won’t relinquish control without a though fight.

If you are like me your Android hand held goes with you everywhere. You probably already use your Android to help you remember appointments and phone numbers and for directions to unfamiliar places. You have probably also use it to manage a todo list..

What follows in this article are some of the best ideas coupled with Android Apps that you can use to help springboard you to the successful attainment of your goals.

 Tips To Help You Reach Your Goals
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Pre-tip
This may go without saying but, in order to achieve a goal you need to have some reasonable idea of some actions you have to take to reach it. For example if you wanted to lose weight, you probably are going to need to start some exercises routine and some change in your eating habits. If you wanted to earn more money you probably need provide more value to your boss or the people that are your customers. Coming up with the specific tasks you need to habituate is up go you to decide.

Tip #1. Motivation
Motivation is fuel that powers our actions to reach our goals

We have all been there. We get all hyped up about a new goal we want to achieve. We start out with a plan of action to get to that goal. We are dutifully executing our actions daily. Then, at some point, three weeks, or three months, we lose steam and become inconsistent. Next thing you know the goal has lost its importance to us. What happened? We lost our motivation.

The way past this issue is we need to keep our goal ‘top of mind’ and ourselves excited until we reach it. You probably look at your Android’s home screen 10’s if not 100’s of times a day. To keep your goal top of mind, use a home screen widget to place an image of what you are trying to attain. This way every time your scroll past that screen you will be reminded of your goal.

Of course, after a few days, you’ll probably stop seeing that image on your home screen. So get as many different images as you can that will keep you inspired about your goal. Use a widget that can randomly change the images every few days. I’ve been using the Photo Gallery Widget by Billy Francisco for a while now. With it you have the choice of several sizes as well as the ability to cycle through all the images a specified directory on your SD Card. You can also specify how frequently to randomly change the image shown on the home screen.

Tip #2. Consistency
Big accomplishments don’t come from big action. They come from small action repeated consistently over time.

Consistent daily action is the key here. When world class athletes are in training they have a daily practice regiment. Why not adopt this mindset of people who are the best at what they do? Figure out what action(s) you can take everyday to move you one more day closer to your goal. Then, hold yourself accountable for doing them everyday.

Jorte is a calendar app that has a task list with a home screen widget. I particularly like this widget because it allows me to show all my daily tasks in red on the widget. Then as I perform the tasks I can check them off and they turn from red to gray. My goal then becomes making that list grey by the time I go to bed everyday. Here is my daily list:

Got 7 hours sleep
Meditate
Walk around the block
Read over goals
Read Success Magazine for 20 minutes
Workout
Go over business and work tasks for the day
Investment News and Education
Research and Manage Trades
Journal Entry

The items on my list indicate an area I am trying to improve upon. I make sure that I get everything done daily. The Jorte task widget stays in front of me throughout the day and I dutifully check of the items as I get them done.

I find that it is easy to make it through the list if I get the majority of the items done as soon as I can after I wake up. Darren Hardy, author of The Compound Effect, has the concept of ‘book ends.’ He starts and ends his days pretty much the same way. By making sure you get your items done soon after you wake up nothing comes up during the day to prevent you from taking the actions you need to reach your goals.

If you want to be reminded of tasks on your list you can have Jorte alarm at a certain time as well.

Tip #3: Rewards
This tip does not have an Android specific tool but is important. Reaching a difficult goal is not a sprint, it is a marathon. Some goals take months or years to achieve. You have to think long term. Will you be able to sustain your motivation and consistency for as long as it takes reach your goals? Let’s face it, the only reason most people don’t reach their goals is because they give up before they accomplish them.

What I do is print out a blank calendar and post it on the wall next to my bed. Every day I successfully do everything on my Jorte task list I get to put a check mark on the calendar for that day. I also put a picture of a reward I get to treat myself with if I successfully fill in the calendar with check marks for the entire month. This picture goes beneath the calendar. Once I get through the entire months with check marks I get the reward. Make sure your reward is something out of the ordinary. Something you normally would not buy or do for yourself.

Outside of the reward, there is something satisfying about seeing the check marks fill up the calendar. Darren Hardy would take this idea one step further. If he did not fill his calendar with check marks he would have to give up something that he enjoys for a month. The promise of the reward adds an intermediary monthly milestone along the way to your goal.

Those are a few of the tips I use to help me stay consistent with reaching my goals. Do you have any ideas you use to help you reach your goals? Let me know.