By Books Writer Denise Turney

You need a target to hit. Without a clear goal, you could spend way too much time circling the mountain. It’s not enough to just want something to happen. To gain success, you need to know exactly what you want and why. Get specific.

What Do You Want

For example, do you want to feel the emotion “happiness”, lose weight or be wealthy? At first glance, those goals may sound clear. However, they are broad. As it regards feeling “happiness”, you could want to feel happy all the time. Aim for this and you might not come to know what shortcuts your path to happiness. You also might ignore signs that you’re headed off path as it regards key life areas.

That’s right. Although frustration, anger and sorrow are emotions that don’t feel good, they can serve as great guideposts. Think of it this way. If you were driving your car and hit a guard rail, you’d know that you were in a danger zone. Keep going, and you could suffer damages.

The same applies with emotions. Sadness, frustration or anger could alert you to the fact that you’re not working the job that you really want to work. Or those emotions (especially if they linger) could alert you to the fact that you’re in a relationship, etc. that you don’t want to be in.

Get Clear About Your Intentions

Additionally, as it regards getting specific about what you want, if you want to lose weight, narrow it down. As an example, instead of going broad with “I want to lose weight”, get more specific and develop a goal to “lose 15 pounds within three months.” Regarding the goal to be wealthy, consider narrowing that goal down into something like “I want to pay off both of my credit cards by end of the year, then grow my savings up to $10,000 or more by the end of next year.”

Those are specific “intended” goals. To stay encouraged as you pursue those goals, align rewards to the intentions. Make sure that you set rewards at markers along the way toward the goal fulfillment. For instance, you could reward yourself with a day off (actually take a vacation day) after you pay down a quarter of your credit card debt.

Of course, it would be smart to avoid using credit cards as a way to reward yourself as you work to eliminate debt. Yet, that shouldn’t be a problem, as there are so many things that you could do that don’t call for spending money. There’s fishing, hiking, bike riding, visiting local arts centers, stopping by a museum, checking out a local bookstore, hanging out with family and friends and so much more.

You Should Be Rewarded

Reward yourself by engaging in activities that you truly love and enjoy. Not only could this encourage you to continue moving forward, it could reinforce the message that you love yourself. And that’s a powerful message to get across to yourself.

After you set clear intentions, think about the reason/s that you want to fulfill the specific goal. Believe it or not, this might be where the rubber meets the road. The why of your aim and your actions might turn out to be your biggest payout.

Check out these whys as it relates to weight loss, wealth and artistic success. See if any of these whys resonate with you.

• To live with high physical energy and to feel vibrant, hopeful and joyful
• To enjoy physical strength and top health, opening myself up to more and more fun activities
• To live debt free for the rest of my physical experience
• To live debt free and build financial wealth so that I can explore experiences that bring me joy
• To gain success creating artwork that I love to create, enough success to earn an entire income creating and selling my artwork
• To make doing what I love, as it regards art and creativity, my life’s work

Create Powerful Whys

Keep going. Create a list of powerful whys. Connect those whys to your goals/intentions. As a note, the more powerful your whys, the easier it may be to map out a clear path or a strategy to achieve your goals and start receiving the rewards that are directly linked to your whys.

This brings up another important point. After you identify specific goals, set reward markers and establish clear whys, you need to outline actions that you are going to take to fulfill your goals. Again, you’ll need to get specific.

Here’s an example of specific steps that you could take to gain wealth. Remember to align this and other goals with one or more powerful whys to stay encouraged and motivated. If you want to gain wealth, consider taking the following actions:

• Create a line-item budget (add mortgage, rent, utilities, credit card payments, entertainment, etc. to the budget)
• Identify expenses that you could forego temporarily or permanently. Eliminate these purchases at least temporarily.
• See which expenses you could substitute for lower costing items. For instance, instead of eating out for lunch, cook enough fresh food over the weekend to easily bring lunch into work.
• Pay $100 or more extra a month on the credit card with the highest fees and interest rates
• Complete online consulting or freelance work. Put 60% money earned from this extra work in an interest-bearing savings account. Consider investing the other 40% of this money into regulated low-risk mutual funds.

Go Get What You Really Want

Start taking the actions and see if you don’t begin to feel empowered. Choose goals and whys that are rooted in love. Also, when you break goals down, set powerful whys and intentions as well as reward yourself along the way, you could feel energized enough to tackle two to three goals simultaneously.

That’s not all. You pursuing and fulfilling your goals could inspire other people to go after what they really want. In fact, don’t be surprised if colleagues, relatives and friends start noticing a positive change in you. They also might start to ask you how you changed.

This is a great time to share the power of setting an intention for success, including how setting clear goals, identifying clear whys and outlining action steps offers amazing energy to your pursuit. A strong why, rewards and clear intentions and action steps can fuel you throughout this world’s ups and downs.