10 Steps to Serious Goal-Getting from Zig Ziglar 

UPDATED: November 15, 2024
PUBLISHED: July 13, 2022
10 Steps to Serious Goal-Getting from Zig Ziglar 

When you plan and prepare carefully, you can legitimately expect your efforts to lead to success. When you recognize and develop the winning qualities that you were born with, the winner you were born to be emerges. Although not all your expectations are going to come to pass, you give yourself an infinitely better chance of succeeding by taking the proper steps.

Regardless of your goal—losing weight, furthering your education, earning a promotion, saving money for a new home or an exotic vacation—you can expect to achieve your goal if you plan and prepare for it.

Start with these 10 steps:

1. Build a solid foundation.

Honesty, character, integrity, trust, love, loyalty. This foundation will give you an honest shot at reaching any goal you have properly set.

2. Make the commitment.

The most practical, beautiful, workable philosophy in the world won’t work if you won’t. As Mary Crowley said, “One person with a commitment is worth a hundred who only have an interest.”

3. Break it down.

Break down your intermediate and long-range goals into increments to create a doable action plan and to prevent burnout or eventual disillusionment with your goal.

4. See it.

If you want to reach a goal, you must “see the reaching” in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal. In your imagination, see yourself receiving that diploma, getting that job or promotion, making that speech, moving into your dream home, achieving that weight-loss goal, etc.

5. Hold yourself accountable.

Daily discipline is the key to reaching your goals. Record your progress toward your goals every night, and list the six most important things you need to do the next day.

6. Expect change.

Make a decision to move towards a goal carefully—but be willing to change your direction to get there as conditions and circumstances demand. Push on, friend.

7. Tell people.

Chances are excellent they’re going to encourage you as you work towards your goals. By telling friends and family, you not only create a support network but also have people to potentially rely on for accountability in your progress towards your goals.

8. Be a team player.

Collaborating with a team not only means participating at the same level as your teammates, it can also mean helping them to reach for their own goals. You can have everything you want in life if you just help other people to get what they want. 

9. Write it all down.

Each time you reach a goal, your confidence will grow so that you can do bigger and better things. After accomplishing any goal, write about it, either in your journal or wherever else you choose to keep a record.

10. Reflect.

What you get by reaching your destination isn’t nearly as important as what you become by reaching your goals—the winner you were born to be.

This article was published in December 2015 and has been updated. Photo by Ollyy/Shutterstock

Zig Ziglar taught timeless lessons of success before his passing in 2012. An author, salesperson and motivational speaker, his books include the classic See You at the Top, as well asRaising Positive Kids in a Negative World, Top Performance, Courtship After Marriage, Over the Top and Secrets of Closing the Sale.

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