Before you set a goal, think about whether it is right for you right now.
Setting goals may seem easy but it requires considerable thought and effort, but without it, you can easily find yourself putting a huge amount of effort into achieving goals that do not help achieve your long term objectives.
Try to make sure that your goals are all working towards the end result you want to achieve, and only focus on those that it’s right to focus on right now.
Make all of your goals SMART.
That’s Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.
That way you will know when you have achieved them.
When you set your goals, be sure to remember that you should have
– some short term goals that are relatively easy to achieve
– some medium term goals that are a little more difficult
– some longer term goals that are hard to achieve.
Achieving your short term goals should help to enable the medium and longer term goals.
If, for example, if your long term goal is to lose 50 pounds this year, you could have a series of medium term goals to lose 4 pounds a month and a short term goal to lose 1 pound a week.
These are SMART goals, and once you have set the goals, you can decide what to do to achieve those goals them and can measure your achievement as you go.
Understand why the goal exists
How will you benefit from achieving your goals?
A common reason for failure is a focus on the cost, rather than the benefit.
The cost of losing weight might be having to cut down or cut out some of the foods you like. If you focus on things you wont like, it’s much more difficult to achieve your goals. If the focus is instead on the health benefits of losing weight, or maybe being able to fit into those special clothes for a holiday, then achieving your goals is much easier.
One way you can do this is to make a list of tangible rewards that will be yours when you reach each goal.
Whenever you ask yourself whether pursuing a goal is really worth while, just take out the list of benefits and remind yourself why you are doing it.
Some people keep the list of benefits with them all the time in a purse or wallet, or saved to their smartphone. Others pin them up in the kitchen. Either way, its a constant reminder of the reasons why you want to achieve your goals.
List the barriers to success – the things that stand between you and achieving your goal
You need to identify and understand the barriers so you can prepare to overcome them.
It will help ensure your goals are realistic and will help avoid unpleasant surprises.
People often have no idea how demanding pursuing and ultimately achieving a goal would be, but worthwhile goals will normally require some effort, and understanding how much effort means you can go into it fully prepared.
Careful preparation is a great mitigation, but you must also understand that you can’t always see the roadblocks ahead.
That’s why it always necessary to maintain commitment, attitude, responsibility, and focus on the benefits.
Remember to stay focused on
– achieving the goal,
– the benefits as well as the barriers to success.
Barriers to success are not exciting. Getting ill just before you go on vacation or running into a traffic jam on the way to the airport aren’t often seen as exciting. However, is a sense, setbacks and difficulties really should generate some excitement, because by overcoming them on the way to achieving your goals, you become stronger and are able to soar to greater heights.