Baby Steps to Setting Goals
August 14th, 2008 by Elliott Roberts
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
World renowned motivational speaker Jim Rohn said, “If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. If you go to work on your plan, your plan will go to work on you. What ever good things we build end up building us.”
Goal setting is indeed a tricky task. Every goal you wish to achieve has to begin as a thought. So the first step is to think. Evaluate your overall situation and define your goals.
The steps below are an outline for you - remember to keep it simple!
Five Step Goal Setting Made Simple:
1. Make Reachable Goals - Get yourself to your limits, then push them.
2. Define Your Objectives - Attention to detail is critical.
3. Put your tasks in order - One thing at a time.
4. Define Your Time Frame - Give yourself time to achieve, but not slack.
5. FINISH - You’ve gotta push yourself through to the end.
Make Reachable Goals
Figuring out your personal, financial, educational or business goals take a lot of thought on your part. Consider what you want to accomplish and journal notes along the way - even if you think it’s a small detail, it could be a critical part in your decision making later on.
“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it.” - A quote by Henry Ford.
Take a while to think things through. If you watch a word-worker make furniture, they might say “measure twice, cut once.” If they don’t do the measurements - and then fall short, the furniture will take much longer to complete because they didn’t do the measuring right the first time. They have to use more material, more time measuring again, all which will make the goal more difficult to obtain.
You can reach for the stars, but if your goals are too lofty, you might be setting yourself up for disaster. You want to push your limits with a goal, but make sure you give yourself enough room to breath so you don’t get disappointed - it’s a balancing act making it hard but easy enough at the same time.
Make a List of Objectives
Give yourself clear and defined goals plus subgoals. Make sure you have time set aside for each goal when you’re writing out your plan. You should also by this time have clear notes about how you’ll reach each goal and subgoal.
Make Sure Everything is in Order
Be honest with yourself about what you have to do in order to accomplish your goals. Make sure you know exactly what you’ll be willing to sacrifice in order to see your goals through. Keep your goals in order of which is most important - first at the top - and only focus on that before you move onto the next!
Do You Have a Set Time?
Exactly as it suggests. Define your time frame. Give yourself an achievable limit. You don’t want to be sitting there 15 years from now wishing you’d stayed on track! Only you can decide when you want to achieve your goals, and only you can make yourself succeed in achieving them. Like step-one, Set Realistic Goals, you have to set a realistic time frame for each goal. Remember, challenge yourself, but don’t make it so difficult that you give up.
FINISH
Besides actually getting your goal on paper, this is absolutely the most critical step - and the one that most people fail with. If you can’t finish, you will unfortunately never get to your goals. If one of your goals is to lose 15 pounds, you can’t let yourself to stop at 14. If your goal is to get an A on your final exam or get a raise at your job, don’t stop until you’ve got what you wanted!
