6 steps to Goal Setting

byMauricio53

379 followers

7 years ago

There birds sitting on a fence. Two decided to fly away, how many are left? Still, three, as they just made a decision, but didn't fly away. I like this saying. It makes you think? Goal setting is like this too, you can decide to do anything you want and never move or lift a finger in the direction of following through. How many new year's resolutions are still there to be done? You made the decision but haven't done anything about yet...

The 6 steps to making Goal Setting work for you are:

1. It needs to be written down

"A dream without a plan is merely a wish and it will never come through". Writing down your goals gives them energy and forms your commitment. Not written down, it will become vague and unimportant and over time, you will forget about it. So if you want to give it energy write it down. By not writing down our goals, we are, in a sense, demanding second best.

2. It needs to be time bound

You might have a goal to be in a Rock band but if you don't put it into an action plan, it will end up at best in your daydreams. Putting a time frame on it puts more certainty in it and it will be more likely that you will reach it. Not sure of the timeframe, no problem. Put one in. You can always adjust it to suit your needs

3. It needs to be measurable

You might have a goal to be happy, but this is hard to measure. If happiness is a feeling for you, you might reach it once a week, or perhaps it is a state but hard to reach or retain. Maybe it needs to be clearer like I will be happy when I am 10kgs lighter might give it the energy you are looking for and it certainly will make it more measurable and do able.

4. It must be exciting

You might have the goal of paying utility bills or the mortgage this month but it will never excite or should not excite you. A goal should excite you and get your motivation to achieving it going. Take a trip to the USA to visit Hollywood would be good. But you can add so many things to do when you get there and this will make this goal much more interesting long before you travel.

5. It needs a set of actions to obtain it and a plan

"Failing to plan is a planning to fail" There will be a list of activities to do with obtaining the goal, you need to know what to do and when it needs to be done. You need to write the action plan and follow through on the actions.

6. You need to reward yourself for each stage of the completion of the Goal

By setting a goal, you are saying you believe enough in yourself to matter. When you complete each stage, (if it is a long goal) you have to reward yourself for the efforts you are making to ensure that you don't forget your principal resource...you. So you need to reward your efforts. You don't need to spend a lot of money but there are going to be things you could do that would treat yourself. You can set bigger goals in the future but for every goal you achieve, you need to reward yourself for the efforts you do to obtain what will be the life of your dreams.

Following these 6 Steps can make goal setting more doable and a lot more fun. Remember Success is the quality of the journey, not its destination!