Goal setting tips - start your future here

Whether you are planning a trip to the moon or you just want to lose a few pounds, these goal setting tips offer you a range of strategies to help you set achievable goals.

When you get in your car you generally know where you are going. Sadly, this is often not the case with our lives. We may have simple goals for each day - go to work, take the children to sport, cook dinner, mow the lawn - but these are simple routine tasks.

On the other hand, how many goals have you set for yourself over the last month? The last year? Your whole life? How are you progressing towards each of those goals? Personal goals are not very common in many people's lives. The goal setting tips on these next few pages will help keep you focused on your self development journey.

What are the benefits of setting personal goals?

There are many but the common ones are:

• To help direct your energy and resources toward a desired outcome
• You have more control over your future
• You can move out of a bad situation into a better one
• You have a way of measuring your own growth
• You will be one of a very small number of people on the planet

These goal setting tips below will guide you through the process of setting and achieving quality goals.

Once you have made a decision to improve your life, you may find it empowering to have a number of personal goals. It might be that you want to make a vision or dream become your reality. You may want to learn a new skill. Perhaps you have seen a personality trait in someone else and would like to develop it yourself.

Setting goals helps you to define where you are at now and what you plan to achieve over a specified time period.

How do you set a quality goal?

The best way is to be SMART. S.M.A.R.T. is a handy way to remember the five elements of a well designed goal. You are encouraged to check out these other goal setting tips but please read about SMART first.

SMART

• Specific. A goal must be clear and specific.
• Measurable. You can measure your progress towards the goal.
• Attainable. It is possible for you to achieve the goal.
• Relevant. The goal fits with your current life purpose.
• Time. There is a time frame for achieving the goal.

Specific Goals

Undefined goals will produce undefined results. We need clear goals in life as there is enough vagueness in the world already. If your goals are vague or incomplete then you will get results that are also vague or incomplete. When you make a detailed goal you can achieve the specific results that you desire. You will know when you have it right. You will be able to your goal to a total stranger and she will understand would understand what you intend to accomplish. Two examples may help.

A vague goal: "I want to create a website."

A specific goal: "I want to create a website on improving your golf swing that has around 100 pages and complete it by the end of summer. To progress toward this goal, I will spend one week researching the topic to fill any gaps in my knowledge and then complete an average of 2 pages per day until I reach completion."

Measurable Goals

You will be able to measure progress toward a quality goal. Without a means of measuring your goal, there will be no way of knowing how you are progressing or even when you have finished. Whether you use values, dates, quantities or some other unit of measurement, be sure to have measures built into the goal.

In the example above, it would be possible to determine progress by comparing the number of completed web pages with the number of days since work began on the goal. You could also determine how much longer you have before you reach your goal. To assist with illustrating good measurement versus bad, here is another example.

An unmeasurable goal: "I want to save money to buy my first car."

A measurable goal: "I want to save $6,000 by my 18th birthday so that I can buy Uncle Bob's 2nd hand Chevy."

Attainable Goals

Setting a goal that is too far out of reach will leave you frustrated and feeling like a failure. Setting a goal that you have almost reached already will not really stretch you. Instead, set goals based on a realistic assessment of your skill levels and current situation.

If you really do want to stretch yourself and you know that you will need to learn a new skill or develop some other part of your life, I recommend making a personal development plan.

An impossible goal: "I want to retire before my next birthday (I am 45)."

An attainable goal: "I want to retire 10 years from now by building up a real estate investment portfolio and developing multiple streams of passive income. I plan to purchase an additional property every 6 months."

Relevant Goals

A quality goal is one that you believe in and it suits who you are. Relevant goals complement your life purpose and the time and energy you invest in achieving them goal is well spent. If you do not have a life purpose or mission statement for your life, consider writing one. It is a statement that outlines our purpose in life.

Our goals need to fit or stem from our mission statement. When we set relevant goals it helps us to further our mission in life, rather than some other random or irrelevant purpose. Click here for help writing personal mission statements. The example below assumes a mission statement with an emphasis on charitable work and no mention of stamps.

An irrelevant goal: "Within 5 years I want to own and manage a web-based stamp collecting club that specialises in stamps from the 1800's." {It might be specific, but it is not relevant)

A relevant goal: "Within 5 years I want to be financially independent so that I can make charitable donations to worthy organisations. I will do this by building up and restructuring my concreting business."

Time-frame Goals

Goals without a time frame are wishful thinking. It is too easy to put off doing something about a goal when there is no time frame. To be effective, a goal needs at least an end point. It could be 1 week from now, it could be 5 years.

When a goal has an end point that is more than a week away then it will also need milestones. Milestones allow for progress to be tracked. They also help with motivation. Goals can also have starting times if you plan to delay the start until some future time.

A wishful thinking goal: "I am going to re-paint the bathroom."

A time-limited goal goal: "Over the next 3 weekends I am going to re-paint the bathroom. I will repair holes and prepare the surface the first weekend, put on the first coat of paint the second weekend and finish it up on the third weekend."

Your next move...

Your next move is to create your goal. If you haven't already, read through the goal setting tips above. If you are still not sure, check out these additional goal setting tips.

Goal setting template

You might also want to download the Goal Setting Template to help you create your goal.

Make SMART goals and you are well on your way to achieving them.

Additional resources

After reading through the goal setting tips on this and the other goal setting tips page, if you are still deciding whether or not there is any benefit in creating personal goals, you may find some value in browsing through the self development resources. There you will find books and other resources that contain the stories of many successful people who have set and achieved numerous goals.

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