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.

Copyright © Gary Killops.
All rights reserved.

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