No matter what you are striving for, there are two simple tricks to learning how to write goals that you can actually achieve. These tricks will work whether you want to lose the baby weight, walk a 5K, or tone up your flabby arms. These tricks to success are to make your goals attainable and as specific as possible.

The biggest blow to your confidence comes when you realize you have failed to reach a goal you put out great efforts to achieve. This is what happens when you set goals that are not realistically attainable.

For example, losing twenty pounds in three weeks is not a realistic goal. The chances of you actually losing that much weight in such a short time frame are slim to none. Striving for this will do nothing but crush your confidence in the end.

A more confidence boosting goal would be to write down that you are going to lose two inches off your waist before the party. If you take immediate action that can actually happen and you will feel confident in your hard work.

If you want to keep your mind trained on the hope of losing three inches despite this lower goal, there is no harm in that. In fact, it may push you to work harder and increase your chances further of reaching that two inch goal.

If you reach your goal of six pounds you will feel successful, but if you reach the higher mental goal you will feel an extra surge of satisfaction. Either way, you come out a winner.

So, how do you track your progress and measure success in the end? The second trick is to make sure your goals are as specific as possible.

Think back to our earlier example of losing six pounds by the end of the year. A generalized goal may be that you want to look beautiful on New Year’s Eve. There is very little here by which to measure progress.

A more specific goal would be that you want to lose twenty pounds and feel comfortable in your bikini come summertime. That gives you two ways to measure your progress and determine success: trying on the bikini and the number on the scale.

These two tricks to learning how to write goals that result in success depend on your knowing exactly what you actually want. Once you know where you want to go, you can set specific and attainable goals which will ultimately lead to that destination.