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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.
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.
To your Success, may you reach your goals.
Gary
Killops
Using the Plug-In
Profit Site System has help Gary Killops achieve his financial income goals
by creating multiple streams of residual income.
Copyright © Gary
Killops.
All rights reserved.
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