Science-based Advice on the Strategies that Work to Achieve Your Goals

http://www.spring.org.uk/2011/02/reaching-life-goals-which-strategies-work.php

• Make a step-by-step plan: break your goal down into concrete, measurable and time-based sub-goals.
• Tell other people about your goal: making a public declaration increases motivation.
• Think about the good things that will happen if you achieve your goal (but avoid fantasizing - see this article).
• Reward yourself for making progress in your goal: small rewards help push us on to major successes.
• Record your progress: keep a journal, graph or drawing that plots your progress.

I like this first because it's based on putting these ideas to the test, and because it generally coheres with other things I've learned (and occasionally posted about) I'm not sure about the advice about avoiding fantasizing. I'm quite interested in the idea of positive imaging, that you should visualize what you want in as much detail as possible, and my intuition is that it could help. Of course that intuition could easily be wrong.