A Realists Guide to Goals and, Whatever

1. Set goals. This is probably the most important part in achieving them.

2. If you suck at something, give up. I know people say, “If at first you don’t succeed…” yada yada, but come on, do you want to be known as the guy or girl that succeeded at sucking? Just because you keep trying, doesn’t automatically mean you’re going to suck less.

Take my neighbor’s kid, for example, he really wants to be a professional baseball player but he’s only four and can’t even hit it out of the infield. On top of that, where’s the strike zone? Exactly. But, I took him to the ballpark anyway and said, “Okay, when you can hit this fastball 400 yards, then we’ll talk.”

And sure enough, all he could do was cry really well. After about four or five hours, I finally took him to the side and said, “Look, not everyone can be Josh Hamilton, otherwise who would run the country? Let’s focus on the Y T-ball team. That’s a goal for you.”

3. Listen to people. Unless you don’t want to. But on the whole, I would say listen. And mainly listen to people that are nice to look at because it makes it a lot easier. Now, I’m not saying do what people say because people say all kinds of things–like “let’s go on this ten mile run that you have to pay for” or “wear this around your waist–it’s called a fanny pack”.

4. Before you set big goals, set small goals. And before you set small goals, set really, really tiny goals to get you started. The first goal can be getting the pen you’ll use to write your goals. Having a good pen in your hand can be a real motivator.

5. The next goal can be creating what some people in the goal-making business call “The To-Do list”. After you write your list, be sure that your next goal is, “Don’t lose the To-Do list”, otherwise you’re really screwed.

6. Set SMART goals. Now if you’re dumb I know this is not possible but you can act smart and fool a lot of people anyway. One way to act smart is to use what’s called a demonic device (it’s okay, this doesn’t mean you’re selling your soul to Satan, it’s just the professional term that we use). For example, you can use the word “smart” as an acrostic. S is for Suck up to rich old people, and so on.

7. Note: If you’ve made friends with a rich old person, you don’t need to read keep reading. Otherwise, when you achieve your goals, celebrate. Probably the most important part of being successful is throwing parties and rubbing it in people’s faces. And don’t just celebrate your big goals, celebrate the tiny ones too so they don’t become insecure (and also so you can throw parties all the time).

10. And finally, accomplishing your goals doesn’t have to be hard. It’s only as hard as you make it. Whether your goal is writing ten good tips for your “Guide to Goal-making” or contributing to Wikipedia without it being deleted, take our word for it, you can do it.