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Simple Tips for Setting Your Goals - Learn How to Set Goals That You Can Achieve!

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Goals. The stuff of New Year’s resolutions, countless workshops, and hundreds of self-help books. We set goals for ourselves, and we often fail at meeting them. The world just keeps kicking the ball, and we stand helplessly by as it flies right past us. We try to protect our goals but the other team, life, seems intent on scoring another point against us.

What are we doing wrong?

Maybe you need to rethink the way you set goals. Here are steps to help you start setting your goals.

Make them realistic

Is your goal something nebulous and unclear?
Get a promotion?
Get in shape?
Raise successful kids?

While all those things can be done, those are not really goals. Those are dreams. A goal is a concrete statement of something attainable. And as you meet your goals, you will be one step closer to your dreams.

Make them simple.

Your goals should be specific. Instead of “Get a promotion,” try “Increase sales by 10 percent each month”

Or “Develop five new viable product ideas in the next six months.”
Or “Lose twenty pounds in the next three months?”
Or “Set up a reward system for good behavior” to encourage the kids?

Make them achievable.

Trying to double your sales in a month sounds good, but probably isn’t something you can really do.

Why set yourself up to fail?

But if you increase your sales by 10 percent every month, in a year you will have more than doubled them. And that you can do.

Make them worthwhile. Too often we set goals that don’t really contribute to our jobs or our sense of well-being. Do you really need to get your filing done daily? Or is weekly or monthly enough?

Will the world end if you don’t mow the lawn every three days? It doesn’t grow that fast, does it?

Do your kids really need to have activities every day of the week? They need some time to chill, and so do you.

Make them work.

Even with simple, realistic goals you still have to work to get them done. One way to do that is to set smaller sub-goals for each goal.

If your goal is to increase sales by 10 percent a month, you might set a sub-goal of making two new sales calls every day.

To develop those new products, make a sub-goal to set aside ten minutes a day to brainstorm new ideas. Those are very doable and directly related to your larger goals.

A good goalie keeps her eye on the ball and anticipates what the other team is going to do. While you can’t know what life is going to kick your way, you can make sure you’ve got the game plan firmly in mind. With your goals to guide you, your championship dreams are just a matter of time.

Simple Tips for Setting Your Goals- Contributed by Susan L.

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