How to Set a Deadline and Achieve Your Goals

To set a deadline correctly is more powerful than what you think

How often do you set a deadline for something? I mean, a real deadline…

Maybe the answer isn’t that easy. To set a deadline, you first need to define what a deadline is. Too often, we mix deadlines with desires or wishes.

Do you know why Neil Armstrong got to the moon?

The one-word answer is “Deadline,” and in a moment, you will know what type of deadline got the first man to step on the moon.

“What would happen if we make it this way?”

“One should be like them.”

“Why didn’t I do it?”

Do these phrases sound familiar? ….When “should” wins over “do it”…

As humans, we continuously live in a mixture of the real world and a world of dreams. It’s good to have dreams, so do not eliminate them. But the problem appears when you can’t distinguish the dreams, the free ideas, creativity, and fantasies from work that really has to be done.

There can be many reasons why something won’t be done, but in one way or another, it will always come down to a missing time schedule.

Fly me to the moon

Coming back to the first man on the moon, the deadline set by John F. Kennedy in 1961, when he addressed a message to Congress, was the start of the moon journey.

“This nation should commit itself to achieve the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth.”

The message transforming the statement to an action plan was the deadline,

“…..before this decade is out….”

Like all famous leaders, Kennedy knew that a goal without a deadline will not be achieved. In July 1969, half a year before the time goal, the first man was walking on the moon.

The classical New Year resolutions are mostly goals without any timeframe, and sometimes we have all been victims of our “false” goals on the 1st of January. See my latest new year’s resolution blog published a few months ago.

There are five essential steps to make your new year’s resolution come true, and one of the steps is, yes, you guess it right: Set a deadline.

Three Reasons to Set a Deadline

There are three main reasons why it’s essential to set a deadline:

A Deadline will force you to make an action plan.

When you set a deadline, you need to think through how to reach your goal and the different steps to take. When analyzing in-depth the required steps to take and the time it will take, you may conclude that the timeframe isn’t realistic. That’s fine. Change the deadline if possible, and stick to the new one.

A Deadline will help you to prioritize.

A project of a specific size contains many different tasks. Setting a deadline will force you to prioritize not to miss the deadline. In any project, we are surrounded by fun and passionate duties as well as dull and less engaging tasks. The deadline will be an excellent assistant to not “fly away” with the fun part only of the project.

A well-defined Deadline will push you through the project.

Do you remember that day when the alarm clock was ringing, telling you that you must go up and not be late for school or your job? Even if it was hard to get out of bed, the deadline pushed you to do it anyway. The same goes for anything you are doing in life.

Set a Deadline and Your Goals will Reach Impressive Results

Three suggestions on how to set a deadline:

#1. Set a deadline that is realistic

You need to think through in detail how to achieve your goal. Use the classical method by creating one “best-case scenario” and another “worst-case scenario.” A realistic scenario commonly is found between the two, “the best” and “the worst.”

#2. Set a deadline with consequences

Go back in time and remember how you were rewarded or punished when sticking to or missing a deadline. Use the same strategy with yourself and your own self-produced timeline. As you can notice, it’s very much about discipline.

#3. Involve other people to hold you accountable

Once your project with a specific deadline has been established, launch it with a lot of “noise.” If other people are aware of your deadline, they will surely “check you up” and hold you accountable for what you are doing. If no one is aware of your timeframe, it is easy to cheat yourself as no one will know about it.

When I decided to become an online marketer six years ago, I had a plan on how to achieve it all. The plan with a timeline and various sub-deadlines forced me to work in a very organized way. Sometimes things didn’t turn out as smoothly or fast as I had thought, and the deadline forced me to work harder and smarter.

By joining the Six Figure Mentors, I gained a lot of time, as thousands of their students have gone through precisely the same process. The highly automated system and the “excessive” number of training sessions helped tremendously to achieve the goals faster and not to miss the deadlines.

Whatever support will back you up in your project, you will always come down to the pure reality that nobody is going to set a deadline for you. And without a time limit, goals are meaningless.

Set a Deadline and Make Your Kennedy Speech

Write it down, tweak it, fine-tune it, and make a decision. Make your own “Kennedy speech to Congress. “ After the time frame is set, there are only two things more to do:

Get started. Remember, the moon landing shouldn’t happen within the established timeframe without immediate action.
Select a proven system to help you to achieve what you are aiming for. In today’s world, you don’t need to “invent the wheel” over and over again. For most projects you might have in mind, readymade systems already exist.

If you have ever been thinking about online marketing, which silently and little by little is taking over world commerce, the Six Figure Mentors is something I highly recommend.

The crisis we are facing right now with the Coronavirus, where people are losing their jobs, is an alarm clock showing how vulnerable the world is today. Now when many are locked in at home, there is time to analyze what can be changed to be better prepared for the next world chaos on the waiting list.

The Internet business fits perfectly into the environment we are living in. It helps people to be more independent and with the possibility to make decisions and not accept the reality next time “the shit hits the fan.”

It changed my life. With or without viruses and any epidemic whatsoever, I keep control over my business. And now, I’m on my way to “the moon.”

Whatever your idea is, set a goal, set a deadline, and……….