Motivation

11 Tools and Resources to Help Accomplish Your Goals

Jul 13, 2009 Tools

Last week I talked about goal setting and that the goals you set should be SMART goals. Today, I want to talk about a few applications that can help you with your goals and share a couple of articles about whether or not your plans should be public or private.

Applications / Tools
mySomeday
Let’s face it, not every goal you set can be a SMART goal. We all have those goals of doing something crazy like visiting a certain country or performing on a TV show. Well mySomeday is a community based around those goals. Sign-up and tell everyone about your goals for that someday down the road.

LifeTango
A site dedicated to the goals we want to accomplish “someday”. Now you don’t need to make your goals public, but if you do you can find “fellow travelers” who want to accomplish or have accomplish the same goal. There are a lot of people with many different goals that you will most likely find someone who shares your interests.

stickK
StickK’s tagline is “put a contract out on yourself.” Sounds like something from a mafia movie, but it makes sense. The site boasts about something they call “commitment contracts.” Basically, when you create a goal through stickK you are setting up a contract with yourself to complete it. If you don’t, the site says that your reputation is at stake and they will notify your friends that you didn’t accomplish your goal. But there is another thing. StickK will let you put your cash up. If you are able to accomplish what you set out to do, you don’t have to pay anything. But if you fail, you forfeit your money. It’s an interesting concept and something they say works.

zeaLOG
A simple life tracking site that enables you to track your goals. You can make them private or public and keep track of just about anything. Along with public or private plans, you can also work in groups to collaborate or receive encouragement. It’s free and takes seconds to sign-up.

Lifetick
I debated about putting this site on here because their free version only allows four goals while the $20/yr subscription allows and infinite amount. But, the free version is still useful. There are a ton of features and multiple ways to track your progress and view your goals. If the site works for you, hey, pay the $20.

Joe’s Goals
Joe’s Goals is a very simple site that allows you to keep track of your goals. The working example on the front page shows just how easy the site is. You can create as many as goals as you want and even add negative habits to keep track of them as well. For each time you exercise or drink a glass of water, you click the day and the site adds a green smiley face and adds a point to your daily score. If you decide to add negative habits like smoking or eating junk food, just click the day and it adds a red frowny face and minuses a point from your daily score. It’s a great tool to keep you accountable.

Joe’s Logbook
Joe also something he calls a Logbook. Instead of smiley or frowny faces, you can type little notes into each day. The example on the front page shows training for a triathlon and the things the fictuous person did during the week like running 3.2 miles on Sunday and lifted weights on Friday. Combining both of Joe’s tools can help anyone accomplish their goals.

Should Your Goals be Public or Private?
Now that you have a few applications at your disposal to help keep track of your goals and hold you accountable, let’s dive into a few articles.

Achieve Your goals by Putting Them Online
This article is from Darrell at Web Worker Daily and he gives your four tips to putting your goals online. He believes that putting your goals online for everyone to see keeps your accountable and will help get them done.

Shut up! Announcing Your Plans Makes You Less Motivated to Accomplish Them
Derek talks about research thats been done since the 1930’s that shows that people who make their plans public are usually less likely to get them done. He gives some links to studies done on the subject and says you should keep your goals or plans to yourself. But he does say this…

If you do tell a friend, make sure not to say it as a satisfaction (“I’ve joined a gym and bought running shoes. I’m going to do it!”), but as dissatisfaction (“I want to lose 20 pounds, so kick my ass if I don’t, OK?”)

Other Goal Resources
The Circle
If you feel that you would like to share your goals with others, check out The Circle. It’s a “goal-oriented social network.” Join “circles” of people with like-minded goals and receive encouragement and advice from them.

Breakthrough Goal Setting Articles
This is an archive of goal setting articles from Persistence Unlimited. There is a ton of great articles and will keep you busy for a while.

Tags: goals, gtd, task management, Tools