7 Goal setting tools you will ever need for a successful life

In this post, we take a look at the goal setting tools that can be used to assist you in achieving your goals.

goal setting tools fountain pen

Oh boy! Are you going to be so disappointed at the end of this post?

You came here looking for the magic app right?

You came here looking for that killer goal setting app or program that will make all the difference in achieving your goals.

Sorry to disappoint. It doesn’t exist.

Don’t worry. You are not the only one I’ve disappointed lately.

As you are wondering why this is the case, I want to let you in on a truth. The truth is that when it comes to achieving your goals, it all comes down to YOU.

No app or software will bring you motivation. Also, no yellow sticky note on the wall will give you the willpower you’ll need to stick to your goals.

The story of me vs my bedside alarm

Nearly 6 years ago, on a sunny Sunday afternoon. I was in my room reading an article online. The article was so interesting that I could barely move a muscle. With genuine interest, I was reading each line as if it were the first words ever written.

I couldn’t wait to finish reading so I could start doing what was recommended by the author. The article was about the importance of waking up at 5 am every morning.

After reading, my brain was seeing all the benefits I would get from early rising. So, without further ado, I took my phone and set a recurring alarm for 5 am every morning.

In my defense, I allowed the alarm to do what it was supposed to do for two days. On the third morning, I started befriending the snooze button.

Much to my surprise, I removed the alarm from my phone with my own hands after two weeks.

Who was to blame in this scenario?

Was it the alarm’s fault?

Was it not doing what it was designed to do?

It did wake me up when it was supposed to. Yet, it met an early demise. By my hands.

An alarm can wake me up but can it make me get out of bed?

7 goal setting tools for a successful life

The best thing any goal setting tool can do for you is to remind you of your goals. There are some useful tools out there that do this job very well and even beyond very well.

We’ll examine those tools in this post. But don’t take this tool as the be all for achieving your goals (except the first one on the list). What you’ll notice if you start doing this is that you install some of these apps, use it for two days and never use it again. Until the next two years when you angrily uninstall it from your phone because they are eating up drive space.

The only tool you’ll need is that engine between your ears.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to whether YOU have enough reasons to achieve your goals or not.

This leads me to the first tool on the list. It’s the only tool you need to focus on and make sure you learn how to use effectively.

  1. Your mind and your brain

Your mind is the software of your thinking self while the brain is the hardware component.

These two are the greatest asset that you have. Heck, those are the things that separate you from an animal.

“When you become the master of your mind, you are master of everything.”— Swami Satchidananda

Think about it. What are the things that make anybody anywhere achieve any goal?

Two things came to my mind when I thought of it; Motivation and willpower.

For any goal to be achieved, you need to be motivated. From the two motivation type personalities we have, you can be either motivated towards pleasure or motivated away from pain.

Either way, if there is no element of motivation, you won’t take any form of action.

Willpower is useful if you encounter any challenges on your way to achieving your goals.

When push comes to shove

Your brain and mind are mainly responsible for your willpower and motivation. They determine how much of it you’ll have for a particular goal.

The age-old question that people often ask is that how can we increase willpower and motivation.

There are ways that willpower and motivation can be increased by using these goal setting process steps.

Also, these goal setting activities will help to strengthen the parts of the brain that will help to achieve goals.

The only way I have found so far that the brain and mind can be directly programmed for success and enhance habits that will support goals is the innercising program by neurogym.

This program will automatically work on your subconscious mind and help you develop powerful habits. Very soon you’ll notice that you start marking the several goals you have as completed.

“Whatever we plant in our subconscious mind and nourish with repetition and emotion will one day become a reality.”— Earl Nightingale

  1. Declare it

Declare-it is an online application that has an enticing visual interface that allows you to create goals in several areas of life’s achievement. These areas include financial, fitness, relationship, and so on.

Not only will you create these goals easily, you will be able to track it.

This online application also comes with an inbuilt accountability process. Accountability is done by connecting you with supporters anytime you declare a goal.

These supporters receive your progress reports and are alerted if you fall back.
Adding accountability to your goal setting activities will make it easier to achieve.

When you take your commitments beyond yourself and involve other people, you significantly increase the chances that you will follow through on those commitments.

For instance, one old trick in the book that writers use to motivate themselves whenever they are in a rut is to go on social media and announce the release date of the novel they are still working on. This creates a sudden type of accountability which will motivate them to take action.

  1. Lifetick

Lifetick has been around for long. It is a web-based software that is useful for goal setting and tracking.

When you sign up at lifetick, there is a value assessment feature that helps you determine what is important to you. This feature helps you discover the types of goals that you need to set.

After determining that, it comes with an inbuilt S.M.A.R.T. feature that accesses whether your goals are measurable, specific, and Time-framed. Setting S.M.A.R.T. goals helps to accelerate the rate at which goals are achieved.

Lifetick also has a journal available where you get to write about your experiences on the way to achieving your goals. Journaling has been shown by researchers to help speed up goal achieving process. Keeping a Journal has been found to increase emotional intelligence, mental awareness, and increase happiness.

With lifetick, you can easily track how you are doing with the goals you’ve set with different types of charts. Also, you can share those goals with others so as to be held accountable.

  1. Goalscape

If you are like most people, there are a lot of goals that you want to achieve. There are different aspects of your life that are competing for your attention.

Where most people crash and burn is that they have these many goals floating around in their heads.

This is detrimental because you will likely overwhelm your brain.

If you don’t focus, gain perspective, and simplify those goals, achieving any of them can be difficult.

This is the classic case of having too many things to do at once. It’s now scientifically proven that we are highly likely to procrastinate or not do anything at all if we are presented with too many tasks at once.

This is where Goalscape comes in. Goalscape is a software that prides itself in helping individuals and businesses break down complex challenges and creating a crystal clear picture of the goals that are needed to be worked on.

“I created Goalscape to break down complex challenges in a meaningful way. I wanted a crystal clear picture of my Goals, my Priorities and the Progress I was making. Goalscape was the answer” — Marcus Baur – Goalscape founder, Architect and Double Olympian

Fortune 500 companies like TOTAL and EON use this app but it is also suitable for individuals.

The app also has a mobile version with a very clean and easy to use interface that lets you visually assign importance to several goals and visually track your progress as you go.

  1. Phone reminders

How many times have you said to yourself at the end of the day; “Oh geez, I forgot to take out the trash!”

As simple as it might seem, there are still sometimes when your phone reminders will come in handy.

Life is a roller-coaster of events that overtake each other. Due to this, there are some daily goals that we fail to achieve simply because we do not remember. This is the part where I like my phone reminders for.

Phone reminders are most effective for daily goals. The funny thing about daily goals is that they are so easy to forget.

A recent recurring example in my life is the neurogym’s winning the game of money innercising program that I do every day. It is my goal to do the innercising every day.

On some days that I’m very busy, it is very easy for me to forget to innercise. So, what I do is that every morning, when I’m doing my morning planning, I look at my schedule and look at where I can put innercising.

I set a reminder for that time on my phone. Even if I’m busy at that time, or I’ve totally forgotten about innercising, once the alarm goes off, I know it’s innercise time.

This helps me to really stick with my daily innercise practice.

  1. Post-it notes

Let’s forget about phone apps and online softwares for a second. Let’s go back to the tools people have been using to achieve their goals pre-internet.

Post-it notes can also be very useful when we are setting goals. They serve as good reminders on the goals and tasks that are to be completed before the end of the day.

A good friend of mine utilizes these yellow post-it notes very well in his office. When he gets to work in the morning, he writes the goals he has for the day and sticks them on his desk in order of priority. After he is done with one task, he removes it.

Not only do post-it notes remind you of your goals, they help you to stay organized. With these notes, you can arrange your goals in order of priorities just like my friend.

A good place to stick your post-it notes to is a place where you can easily see it. When you are at work, your desk is the best option. At home, the refrigerator can be a good place to put it because every time you have to get something from there, you’ll see it.

  1. A dedicated goal-board

A whiteboard is also a good goal setting tool to have at home or at your place of work.

With markers, you can write the tasks/goals to be completed for the day on this board.

It’s good to place these boards where everyone on your team or everybody working on a particular project can easily see it.

You can make a list of the goals you have for the day on these board in order of priority. After the successful completion of each goal, it can be cleaned off of it.

Closing words

All these tools I have found to be useful but they are just reminders. The first tool is the only tool that you need to really work on if you want to increase the rate at which you achieve your goals.

So, how disappointed are you?

If you came here looking for the magic app, I’m guessing you’ll be very disappointed with this list.

But if you are the type that knows that most of the goal setting tools out there are just to remind you and won’t really force you to take action, then you’ll see that the list is valuable.

As always, if you have any question or want to contribute a tool you’ve used to achieve your goals, feel free to share it with the comment section below.

If you have a contradicting view of the topic discussed, please share with us. Remember that sharing is caring.