Every person in the world devotes countless hours to thinking of their future and their present situation in life. Almost everyone wishes that there was something that they could change in their life.
Whether it is their family life; their friendships; relationships or finances, everyone wants to change something. The first step to doing that is to set goals.
However, many of us are great at trying to set goals; most of us are practically incapable of following through with them.
Think about it. How many times have you decided on a course of action and simply didn’t follow through with it?
That is pretty much the norm for most people.
Sometimes even setting goals at all is the harder part of accomplishing any. The easiest way of looking at this is to think of each and every New Year.
The largest part of New Year’s celebrations are not the parties and the get-togethers; it is actually in the resolutions.
As much as we all like to attend and talk about New Years Eve parties, the most common source of conversation is the resolutions for the new year.
All it really is- is code talk for new goals that need to be set. The only problem is that most of us set the same resolutions every year, and every year, we are unsuccessful. After all, if we were successful; why would we need to keep making the same resolutions year after year?
This e-book was designed to teach you how to end the constant need to re-set the same resolutions every year. Basically this book will be your comprehensive guide to setting and fulfilling goals in every aspect of your life.
When I say every aspect of your life, I mean every aspect of your life. Aren’t you getting tired of trying to set goals for yourself and always finding that you have to do it again almost every other month?
With this guide, you will learn how to set goals in your life for:
Healthy relationships
Work
Finances
Personal health and fitness
Friendships and more.
By setting goals you can:
Achieve more in your lifetime
Improve your overall performances in life
Increase your motivation to achieve the most out of life
Increase your pride and satisfaction in your achievements
Improve your self-confidence
Plan to eliminate attitudes that hold you back and cause unhappiness
People who use goal-setting effectively:
suffer less from stress and anxiety
concentrate and focus better
show more self-confidence
perform better in all areas of life
Are happier and more satisfied with life
Goal Setting Also Helps Self-Confidence
By setting goals, and measuring their achievement, you are able to see what you have done and what you are capable of.
The process of achieving goals and seeing their achievement gives you the confidence and a belief in yourself that you need to be able to achieve higher and more difficult goals.
Providing that you have the self-discipline to carry it through, goal setting is also relatively easy. The following section on goal setting will give you effective guidelines to help you to use this technique effectively.
How to choose the right goals to focus on
Sometimes setting goals alone is not the only problem that you must face. Sometimes, choosing the right goals to begin with is harder.
Basically, you can choose to work any goal that you feel is necessary for your health, stability and happiness.
Goal setting is nothing more than a formal process for personal planning. By setting goals on a routine basis you decide what you want to achieve, and then move in a step-by-step manner towards the achievement of these goals.
The process of setting goals and targets allows you to choose where you want to go in life. By knowing exactly what you want to achieve, you know what you have to concentrate on to do it. You also know what nothing more than a distraction is.
Goal setting is a standard technique used by professional athletes, successful business people and high achievers in all fields. It gives you long term vision and provides you with short term motivation.
It helps to focus your attention and knowledge which helps you to organize your resources. By setting sharp and clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals. You can see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless effort.
By setting goals, you will also raise your self confidence, as you recognize your and ability to meet the goals that you have set. The process of achieving goals and seeing this achievement gives you confidence that you will be able to achieve higher and more difficult goals later on.
Goals are set on a number of different levels. In the first place, you decide what you want to do with your life and what large scale goals you want to achieve.
Second, you break these down into the smaller aims that you must hit so that you reach your overall lifetime goals.
Finally, once you have your plan, you start working towards achieving it.
Beginning your goal setting plans
This section explains how to set personal goals. It starts with your lifetime goals, and then works through a series of lower level plans culminating in a daily to-do list.
By setting up this structure of plans you can break even the biggest life goal down into a number of small tasks that you need to do each day to reach the lifetime goals.
The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime, as setting lifetime goals that gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making process.
To help give you a broad, and balanced coverage of all important areas in your life, try to set goals in some or all of the following categories:
Artistic: Do you want to achieve any artistic goals? If so, what is it? Do you want to write a book; paint a masterpiece, or write a song?
Attitude: Does your own mindset hold you back from making progress? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you for example, do you talk too much? If so, set a goal to improve your behavior or find a solution to the problem.
Career: What level do you want to reach in your career? Is it your goal to be the boss or own your own company someday, or do you want to be the president of someone else’s company?
Education: Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular or some area of study that you would like to pursue? What information and skills will you need to achieve these goals?
Family: Do you want to be a parent? If so, how are you going to be a good parent? How do you want your partner or family members to see you?
Financial: How much do you want to earn by what age in your life? What can you do to make that come about?
Physical: Are there any athletic goals you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this?
Pleasure: How do you want to enjoy yourself? You should ensure that some of your life is geared toward making yourself happy for no reason other than being happy
Service Do you want to make the world a better place by your existence? If so, how?
Once you have decided your goals in these categories, you have to assign a priority to them if you want to succeed.
Then review the goals and re-prioritize until you are satisfied that they reflect the shape of the life that you want to lead.
Also, you should ensure that the goals that you have set are the goals that you want to achieve, and not what your parents, spouse, family, or employers want them to be.
Success only happens when you are working for your own well being because doing it for others will ensure that you sabotage your own success.
How to begin to achieve your Goals
Once you have set your lifetime goals, the best thing that you can do is set a 25 year plan of smaller goals that you should complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan.
From there you can just shorten your overall goal spans for example, you set a 5 year plan, 1 year plan, 6 month plan, and 1 month plan of progressively smaller goals that you should reach to achieve your lifetime goals.
Each of these should be based on the previous plan. It is the best way to begin to achieve a lifetime that is filled with and results in a life without any failed wishes. It results in a life without regret.
You see, by starting out slowly, you are giving yourself the chance to realize and work on achieving the goals that you set out to.
Nobody ever succeeds at attaining a goal that was forced through. Those that tried never really got what they were hoping for. In rushing through and trying to achieve your goals quickly you will likely miss a few key aspects that can really change your outcome.
Think of it this way; if you were to run a 10K marathon and decided to take a cab for half of the journey; have you really achieved that goal? Would you be satisfied when you crossed the finish line?
It would be a hollow victory that could only provide a moment’s happiness.
Finally set a daily to do list of the things that you should do today to work towards your lifetime goals.
At an early stage these goals may be to read books and gather information on the achievement of your goals. This will help you to improve the quality and realism of your goal setting and in effect; make it easier to achieve them.
You also have to review your plans, and make sure that they fit the way in which you want to live your life.
Once you have decided what your first set of plans will be, keep the process going by reviewing and updating your to-do list on a daily basis.
You have to periodically review the longer term plans, and change them to reflect your changing priorities and experiences in your life.
Setting your Goals Effectively
There is a difference in setting your goals and setting them effectively. Anyone can set a goal, but doing it effectively means that it will actually get done.
There are so many things that you can do to better your life, but if you don’t know how to go about it you are stuck.
The following guidelines will help you to set effective goals and help you manage your time in an efficient manner that will cause those goals to become reality.
State each goal as a positive statement
Express your goals in a positive way. That is a key component to setting goals that you can attain.
How often have you been excited to accomplish a goal that didn’t even sound good when you brought it up? If you are not comfortable or happy with the goals that you have set, the likelihood of you succeeding is pretty low.
If you want to express your goals in a positive way, you simply have to first think of a goal that puts a smile on your face when you imagine it completed. Why would you want to set a goal that made you frown, cringe or cry?
When you are beginning to set your goals it helps when you are talking about them to others in a manner that states your actions as positives because it will have others seeing it as a positive as well.
That will garner you a great deal more support. In the end, don’t we all need a little support when we are trying to do something positive in our lives?
Be precise
Set a precise goal that includes starting dates, times and amounts so that you can properly measure your achievement.
If you do this, you will know exactly when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it.
Being precise in setting your goals is no more than setting them with exact details. It is easier this way because then you can follow a step-by-step format. That’s all there is to it.
Set priorities
When you have several goals, give each a specific priority.
This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones and follow each in succession. Setting priorities will force you into the step-by-step format above.
By doing the most important first and moving to the least important in succession, you are enabling each task to be easier than the last. It causes the accomplishment of each task to get easier and easier which will encourage you to complete your goal.
Write goals down
This crystallizes your goals and gives them more force.
In writing your goals down, you are better able to keep up with your scheduled tasks for each accomplishment. It also helps you to remember each task that needs to be done and allows you to check them off as they are accomplished.
Basically, you can better keep track of what you are doing so as not to repeat yourself unnecessarily.
Keep operational goals small
Keep the low-level goals you are working towards small and easy to achieve. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that you are not making progress towards it.
Keeping goals small and incremental allows you more opportunities for reward. Derive today's goals from larger ones. It is a great way to accomplish your goals.
Set performance goals, not outcome goals
You should take care to set goals over which you have as much control as possible. There is nothing more dispiriting than failing to achieve a personal goal for reasons that are beyond your control.
These could be bad business environments, poor judging, bad weather, injury, or just plain bad luck. If you base your goals on personal your performance, then you can keep control over the achievement of your goals and get satisfaction from achieving them.
Set realistic goals
It is important to set goals that you can achieve.
All sorts of people (parents, media, and society) can set unrealistic goals for you which is almost a guarantee of failure. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions or flat out disinterest.
Alternatively you may be naïve in setting very high goals. You might not appreciate either the obstacles in the way, or understand quite how many skills you must master to achieve a particular level of performance.
By being realistic you are increasing your chances of success.
Do not set goals too low
Just as it is important not to set goals unrealistically high; do not set them too low. People tend to do this where they are afraid of failure or where they simply don’t want to do anything.
You should set goals so that they are slightly out of your immediate grasp, but not so far that there is no hope of achieving them. No one will put serious effort into achieving a goal that they believe is unattainable.
However, remember that your belief that a goal is unrealistic may be incorrect. If this could be the case, you can to change this belief by using imagery effectively.
Achieving your Goals
When you have achieved a goal, you have to take the time to enjoy the satisfaction of having done so. Absorb the implications of the goal achievement, and observe the progress you have made towards other goals.
If the goal was a significant one, you should reward yourself appropriately. Think of it like this, why would you choose to ignore any accomplishments that you have made?
In doing that, you are downplaying your accomplishment which will convince you that it wasn’t that important in the first place.
With the experience of having achieved each goal, you should next review the rest of your goal plans and see them in the following manner:
If you achieved the goal too easily, make your next goals harder
If the goal took a disheartening length of time to achieve, make the next goals a little easier
If you learned something that would lead you to change other goals, do so
If while achieving the goal you noticed a certain lacking in your skills, decide which goals to set in order to fix this.
You should keep in mind that failure to meet goals does not matter as long as you learn from it. Feed lessons learned back into your goal-setting program.
You must also remember that your goals will change as you mature. Adjust them regularly to reflect this growth in your personality. If goals no longer hold any attraction for you let them go.
Goal setting is your servant, not your master. It should bring you real pleasure, satisfaction and a sense of achievement.
If it stops, there is no longer a point. Let’s look at an example.
The best example of goal setting that you can have is to try setting your own goals. Set aside two hours to think through your lifetime goals in each of the categories. Then work back through the 25-year plan, 5-year plan, 1-year plan, 6-month plan, and a 1-month plan.
Finally draw up a To Do List of jobs to do tomorrow to move towards your goals. When you do, you will soon realize that you will be on your way to using your goals setting on a routine basis.
What are the Key Points in Goal Setting?
Goal setting is an important method of accomplishing any lifetime achievement. However, there are some key points that you should consider before setting your goals. Let’s take a look at what those are.
Deciding what is important for you to achieve in your life and making your choices based on this knowledge
Separating what is important from what is irrelevant so that your focus is in the right place
Motivating yourself to achievement to ensure their accomplishment
Building your self-confidence based on the measured achievement of goals
Ensuring that your goals are your own and no one else’s
You should allow yourself to enjoy the achievement of goals and reward yourself appropriately. You must draw lessons where they are appropriate, and feed these back into future performances. In learning from mistakes and errors, you are guaranteeing future success.
You would think that there would be more than five key points to goal setting, but truly there are only five. Everything else is just a branch of the main five points. Let me show you what I mean.
Your Goals
What is important to you?
Motivation
Your goals are your own
Self Confidence
Do for yourself not others
Get started, keep going
Lifetime achievement
Feel better about yourself
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What this diagram shows you are the key points in setting your goals. It shows that they are the key points in the setting of your goals.
If you continue to add more branches to those four, you will see that they are all manifestations of what you are already seeing. As you continue to add more branches you will find that all these things will tie into the first branches.
How Goal Setting can go Wrong
Goal setting can go wrong for a number of reasons. When these things happen, it can be a great bit devastating to the self esteem and can make the idea of setting any new goals mute.
Before we can look into what we can do about solving these goals setting problems, let’s see what the problems can be. This section is really no more than a more detailed explanation of the above section, but I felt that it needed a section of its own to help you set your sights solely on how setting your goals can go wrong.
If it seems repetitious, it is because it is! But it is very necessary for this guide; especially for quick referencing later.
Outcome goals can be set instead of performance goals because it forces you to focus on the end result immediately instead of taking your time to go through the steps of goals setting. When you set goals properly you will be doing it in a step by step manner. Where you are using outcome goals, and you fail to achieve the goal for reasons outside your control, this can be very dispiriting and can lead to loss of enthusiasm and feelings of failure. Always set performance goals instead as this will give you a higher chance of succeeding.
Goals can be set unrealistically high. When a goal is perceived to be unreachable, no effort will be made to achieve it. Set realistic goals so that you can best decide how to go about achieving them.
In retrospect to the above, goals can be set so low that you feel no challenge of benefit in achieving the goal. Setting goals has been a waste of time. Always set goals that are challenging enough to be worth the effort, but not out of reach.
Goals can be so vague that they are useless. It is difficult to know whether vague goals have been achieved. If achievement can’t be measured against your expectations, then your self-confidence will not benefit from goal setting, nor can you observe progress towards a greater goal. Set precise and quantitative goals.
Goal setting can be unsystematic, sporadic and disorganized. In this case certain goals will be forgotten, and the achievement of goals will not be measured and feedback will not occur into new goals. The major benefits of goal setting have been lost. Be organized and regular in the way that you use goal setting.
Too many goals that aren’t given priority may be set, leading to a feeling of overload. Remember that you deserve time to relax and enjoy being alive and not solely focused on your goals and achievements.
Where goal setting does go wrong, not only are the benefits of goal setting lost, but the whole process of goal setting can fall into disrepute.
By avoiding these problems, and setting goals effectively as described in the previous section, you can achieve and maintain a strong forward leap into your future.
The 'Quantum Leap' Approach to Goal Setting
One approach to goal setting for yourself and other people is the 'Quantum Leap' approach. This tries to force intense activity by setting a goal that will need a 'quantum leap' in activity to achieve it.
This is a dangerous technique that should be used with a great deal of care. It is very easy for the whole process of goal setting to fall into problems where quantum leap goals are not met.
Similarly if you are really not convinced that a goal is attainable, you will not put effort into achieving it. Doesn’t all of this sound repetitious!
Business Managers using this approach should take care that they are not shot down by someone that is firmly requesting information on how a quantum leap goal should be achieved because then everybody suffers.
Getting Specific in Goal Setting
Although the concept of setting goals in general is a great one to learn; which was explained in the above sections, it helps to be able to set goals in specific areas of your life separately.
For example; if you want to better your career options, you will be setting goals that specifically cater to your career. Of course, career goals aren’t the only goals that most people are looking to set. Other areas of goals include:
Let’s take a look at all of the most common goals that you should consider and how best to go about each one.
What would be the point in learning how to set goals in general and not give specific examples and instructions on the most common goals that are set? Let’s get started now.
First of all what do you think stops most people from achieving what they want out of life? Perhaps it is a lack of talent, lack of ability, personal circumstances, and upbringing. I'll tell you this much; it's none of those.
The single biggest reason for an inability for reaching goals is a lack of action, or not setting them in the first place or doing anything about it.
If you don't start in the first place, then how do you expect to move forward? Many a life long adventure started with the smallest of steps. Action is the first step to achieving your goals.
Most people are fine at choosing a goal to set, but are inept at reaching them. You can achieve everything you want by making one step.
One step is all you need to make. One step today, one step next week or tomorrow, whichever is more convenient to you. The important thing is to keep making steps once you have started.
The trouble is, often the first step is the hardest, and the next step is just as hard. It is only after you have made a series of steps that it gets easier.
You need to know the truth about what is really holding you back. Motivation and goal setting go hand in hand. The goal is your journey and the motivation your fuel to get there.
You may have many goals, but no fuel to get there. You may have gallons and gallons of fuel, but no journey to go on.
What can prevent you from going on that journey? There are many more things holding you back than you realize.
YOU are probably the biggest cause. The way you approach a goal will ultimately affect whether you will achieve it or not. The good news is that you can break free from whatever is holding you back.
Friends and family are next in line. They may have your best interests at heart, but often their inaction is what lies behind their advice to you.
It is really common for those around to hold you back simply because they are not doing anything themselves. For example, if you are losing weight, some of your support system will inadvertently sabotage you by offering you food or alcohol.
I'm not saying that all advice is bad, it's just that sometimes the most well meaning of comments can empty your fuel can faster than, well a very fast thing.
You need to spot these things when someone or something is draining your fuel and put a stop to it, either mentally or physically. You need to break free from whatever is holding you back. Now that you know this, let’s get started.
Setting career goals
One of the toughest issues in making a good career choice and career goal setting is identifying what it is that you want. Even when it seems that you know what you want, you may still have doubts on if your career choice is the right one for you.
Reaching clarity in those issues may be the most important thing you can do in your career planning and goal setting. Here are a few career goal setting guidelines that can help.
Most people, even very successful ones, have some periods in their career path when they seem unsure about their career choice and goals. It is totally human to feel that way.
Often, such periods just come and go. For example, they come when you face some overwhelming obstacles on your way. It is all over as soon as you get through these obstacles.
That situation by itself is not a problem of choosing a career, only a test of your perseverance in seeing it through but what if those doubts persist, or if they always live somewhere in the background of your thoughts? If it just does not feel right?
If this is the case, then it is time to look more carefully at your career choice and overall career objectives.
Often we choose or are placed in a career because it just seems like the right step to make or that is what your studies have focused on.
The only problem is that sometimes that passion that we once had as a young adult are now gone, or the realism of the job has taken the interest and joy out of it.
That is when it is time to set a new career goal or objective. Choosing the right career goal to sink into requires a great deal of soul searching. You need to ask yourself these questions beforehand:
Am I making the kind of money that I want to make?
Do I want to make more money?
Does money even matter to me?
Do I like what I’m doing right now?
What am I passionate about?
What could I be doing that would make me happier than I am right now?
Would I be happier simply switching positions or getting a promotion; or would I be happier changing careers all together?
Why am I still working here?
What is stopping me from leaving this job or getting that promotion?
What is stopping me from leaving this job?
These are all vital questions that you have to ask yourself before deciding what your career goals are going to be. If you are honest with yourself, you will know exactly what direction you should be going in.
Without being honest with yourself you can’t expect to better your life, you can only expect to have to ask yourself these questions all over again until you find happiness.
Career Goal Setting Plan <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]--> <!--[endif]-->
The following table provides you with a simple outline of the factors you may want to consider and identify when setting and analyzing your career goals in a step by step format.
Career Goal You must Define and write them down in order of priority
Benefits and Advantages of achieving this goal Listing these may help to motivate you
Key Steps That you Need to Take
When Will I do This? Give Yourself deadlines
Support and Resources (What support and from whom do I need, what resources, such as time, money, contacts)
Outcomes and Reflection (Record whether you achieved the goal and what worked or did not work along the way for future reference)
The above table sort of shows you the who, what, where, when, and how of career goal setting. It is just like finding the facts for a story. Journalists have to answer all of these questions in order to get the full story.
That is the same thing that you have to when setting career goals. Let me show you in exact detail in the next diagram.
Who
What
Where
When
How
Who will I ask for help?
What do I want the outcome to be?
Where should I start?
When should I begin?
How should I begin?
Who will benefit from my career goal?
What will I do to get started?
Where will my career goal put me in 10 years?
When Do I want these goals to be reached?
How will these goals affect my future?
Who will I work with to accomplish my goal?
What will really make me happy?
Where will I apply my resources?
When will I apply my knowledge to begin attaining my goals?
How do I really feel about the goals that I have chosen?
Do you see what I’m talking about now? All of these questions have to be directed before you can begin to work on your career goals.
They will take some real thought and honesty to set them properly. When you have answered these questions you next have to begin to prioritize them. Let me show you an example.
John Smith wants to be the President of his company one day. Right now he is a mere data entry clerk. His company is a large corporation that works with computer repairs and security. John knows everything there is to know about computer repairs and can fix almost any computer he will ever look at.
He is efficient at using and finding hackers and securing computers are not hacked into. His boss is currently ignoring his advice so John is not so sure how to go about getting his dream of being president of the company someday which he is more than capable of doing already. What should he do?
This is a time when John should begin to prioritize and decide how he can get to his goal. His ultimate goal is to be company president and he wants to accomplish this in 10 years.
John is currently 26 years old. Since he knows the what and the when; he must decide everything else. I opted to show you his possible steps in an easy t
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