The power of goals is immense; it has been the process for many of the most successful people in the world as they traveled the steps of their own journey. But what sets them apart from the lay person, who goes from unachieved goal to unachieved goal, is that they have learned the correct way to go about setting their goals. The most successful people, in any industry, field or occupation, are not making the following mistakes when they decide on a goal. Are you?

1. They phrase it correctly. Did you know that simply the way you say your goal has a huge effect on whether or not you will achieve it? Instead of saying that you want to do something, or that you wish to do something, phrase your goal in the following format: “I choose…” When you say that you want to do something, your brain refers this sentence as a far-off reality, a hope, a dream. Phrase it as “I choose” and your brain is forced to acknowledge that this goal is something you are doing now.

2. They are willing to allow for mistakes and roadblocks. The human brain can be fickle when things go awry; our first instinct is to walk away and drop our plans the moment things start to fall apart. But this is precisely the moment for you to shine. You have to give yourself a chance to adapt and to adjust to your surroundings. When you are drawing up your plan to achieve your goals, allow roadblocks with each of the major steps of your plan.

3. They don’t believe in a vague goal. These are typical dream goals: “I want to be rich”, “I want to be good-looking” etc. There is no possible way to achieve these goals because they are completely subjective. Nail your goal up against a wall; give it an exact number, date, or figure. “I want be making $125,000 a year by December 2012.” “I want to weigh 182 pounds within 12 weeks from now.” Once you have that detailed figure, you are forced to come up with a plan to get there! Day-dream about a vague and hazy goal and not only will you never get there, but odds are you won’t even get started.

4. They aren’t scared to make a plan. This is where most people stop when they create a goal. Making a comprehensive plan should be an exercise in making your goal more realistic, but many goal-setters see all the steps necessary in the achieving of their goal and suddenly they get bashful or overwhelmed by what they see as an intimidating wall of work between them and their goal.

5. They make goals that are challenging, but realistic. It’s not uncommon to see people set extravagant goals, go full-bore on them for several days or weeks, and then fail spectacularly. Out of this defeat they get a belief that they aren’t good enough, that life isn’t fair, that they aren’t meant to be successful. The truth lies more in that the goal they set was exceptionally out-of-reach. Whether it’s a timeline that is far too short, or expectations of an easier route to their goal, these people dreamed bigger than reality allowed.

Simply by avoiding this list of common errors anyone with a goal worth achieving can significantly increase their chance of success. Spend the necessary time to sit down with your goals, and get to know them. Why are they important to you? What do you hope to get from them? And once you have those answers, and this little list of mistakes, you will find momentum within you to get further down the road to your success.