If you want to be successful in life, you need to set goals. Without objectives, you lack intention and direction.
Having goals set allows you to take control of the direction of your life and also provide a point of reference to understand if your thinking and behavior habits are really leading you where you want.
The most delicate step to achieving your life goals is for you to first set it. Harv Ecker, the author of “The Secrets of a Millionaire Mind,” argued that most people don’t achieve their goals because they haven’t made it clear what they want.
It is not enough simply to say that you want something and expect something to just happen. Setting goals is a process that begins with careful consideration of what you want to achieve and continues with the work to achieve them with tenacity, perseverance, focus, and trust.
Here are 9 golden rules for setting successful goals.
- Determine the Categories of Your Life in which You want to Set the Goal on.
Of course, achieving a balance between personal and professional life is essential, so you have to set goals in all aspects of life. However, if you have never done this exercise, start gradually.
Don’t be so ambitious about the goals you set because you could feel too pressured, or even totally disconnected in your daily reality from those ambitious goals, and you would end up abandoning everything in a few months.
Define which areas need more attention right now, which can positively impact your lifestyle. The categories you can start with are your job, professional career, physical condition, business, relationships, and your finances.
- Having a Great Why
When setting a goal, make sure it’s important to you. Ask yourself how it brings more value to your life and your work, what changes compared to achieving it today. One of the core keys to achieving a goal is motivation.
If you set yourself an irrelevant goal and you have little interest in the result, you will probably begin to postpone the necessary actions and leave it to only chance.
Instead, set goals that relate to the true priorities of your life and work. Without this kind of focus, you can end up with too many goals, leaving too little time to devote to each of them.
- Set Motivating Goals
When you set goals for yourself, it is essential that they motivate you: this means making sure that they are important to you and that there is a high added value in achieving them.
Motivation is one of the keys to achieving what you have set for yourself. If you have little interest in the goal you have chosen, you will probably not do everything possible to achieve it.
Set goals that are closely related to the pressing needs of your private and professional life. Without this kind of focus and urgency, you may not have the perseverance to commit enough and put off what you need to turn the goal into reality.
- Set SMART Goals
To be SMART, a goal must be simultaneously:
- S pecific
- M easurable
- A chievable
- R elevant (Relevant)
- T ime-bound (Defined over time)
From the explanation above, I’m sure you now know the meaning of this acronym very well. But do you always apply this rule? For the objectives to be powerful, they must be:
- Specific, clear, and well defined so that they can show the way.
- Measurable with quantitative and qualitative indicators that allow you to understand where you are along the way.
- Ambitious, but realistic and, above all, that it is in your power to achieve them.
- Relevant, that is, important to you and relevant to the direction in which you want your life and your work to go.
- Time cautious, that is, the objectives must have a date by which to achieve them, to give you some sense of urgency and the possibility to create your action plan.
- Form Them in Writing
Putting targets black on white is a powerful act, not only from a symbolic point of view, but because it makes them tangible and it forces you to formulate them in a specific way.
Make sure to express them in the affirmative and define indicators to understand where you are.
- Define the Action Plan
Strange as it may seem, most people are so focused on the result that they avoid defining how to achieve it and the goals become dreams that never come true. So keep in mind the result and go defining the sub-objectives and implementation actions on a monthly, weekly, and daily basis. The more ambitious the goal, the more critical this step is.
- Make Decision towards the Action Plan
This step is often skipped in the goal-setting process. We are so focused on the result that we forget to plan all the steps necessary to achieve it.
By writing down the individual steps and ticking off each one once completed, you will realize that you are making progress towards your final goal. This is especially important if your goal is very ambitious or long term.
- Respect the Plan
Make sure to carry out the defined actions with constancy and tenacity for as long as it takes to make things happen. Periodic reviews will be necessary and you will probably have to correct the short based on the medium-term results you will get.
And here I want to tell you something. Very few people are able to reach the goal by themselves. We all need to be focused, encouraged, and supported along the way. Have you ever thought about being accompanied by a coach?
- Update Your Goals Constantly
The definition of an action plan is an ongoing activity, not just a means of achieving an end. It is very important to check it periodically and, if necessary, modify it.
Your ultimate goal may remain substantially the same over time, but the action plan you have set up may also change significantly. Make sure your action plan is always relevant, valid, and consistent.
Goal setting is much more concrete than just saying you want something to happen. Unless you clearly define what you want and understand why you want it more than anything else, the odds of success decrease considerably.
By following the 9 golden rules above to set your goals, you can set them to the best and start on the right foot to reach them.
Now its your turn how do you set goals and what goals do you have before the end of the year?
Gojenbefit 