What are your goals in life? What do you aim to become? Where do you see yourself ten years from now? These are some of the most common questions that we normally have to answer our parents, teachers and sometimes friends. The more you hear of these questions, the more you want to ignore them. Reason being the answer of all these questions would accurately determine your current status, what you are thinking and where your course of life is heading. Ignoring these questions until sometime is fine but not forever. There will be a time when you really have to face the truth and ask these questions to yourself. Goals are a set of objectives you want to achieve to get something in life. Goals can be anything, depending on the person’s choice and preference. For a student, goals could be passing the exams or securing the first rank in school or university. For a working individual, goals can be getting a salary hike or being promoted to the managerial position. Goals can be short term or long term based on your current situation. For example, if a person decides to buy a car the following year, his goal would be to assimilate money to buy the automobile. Long term goals can be to own a company or buying a lavish house or making a comfortable bank balance before retirement. Whatever be the goals, they should be clearly defined to get an exact picture of your objectives. Not well defined goals are useless as they never help in achieving anything. Here are some goals setting tips that will guide you.
Goal Setting Tips
Write Down Your Goals
The most important step of setting goals is to write them down. Not only will it help in clearly defining them, but it will also prevent you from distracting from your course of action. Clearly written goals help in focusing on your objectives and serve as reference to set plans to achieve them.
Clearly Define Your Goals
Many people commit mistake by making their aims too broad and having too many variables to contend with, hence failing to concentrate on important points and deviating from their main or chief goals. So, it is recommended that you make your goals specific and easier to achieve.
Prioritize Your Goals
Check the goals you have written down and sort them based on their importance. Priority should be given to the most important goals first and lesser important goals will be accomplished after the completion of the urgent goals.
Goals Should be Realistic
Remember setting unrealistic goals will eventually lead to failure, which can further lead to loss of self confidence. As such, it is advisable to not make any unattainable goals; instead you should put a realistic time frame to the goals so that they don't discourage you.
Know Your Strengths
Always remember your qualities and strengths will play a major role in your success. Make a list of your positive qualities as this would greatly help in boosting your self confidence. While setting professional and corporate goals, knowledge of your strengths will help in determining why you can achieve the goals.
Show Consistency
Keep in mind that results can only be achieved from perseverance and constant efforts. A person needs to be diligent and consistent to achieve his goals. There is no shortcut way to success other than being diligent.
Believe in Yourself
It is one of the key elements required for successful accomplishment of the goal. Self belief is the virtue of great people. Without self belief, none can achieve goals. Doubts and disbelief distracts a person from his goals and affects actions. As such, having a firm self belief will greatly boost your self confidence and motivate you to stand in adverse conditions.
Make an Effective Plan
It is important to construct a plan which should be thorough, complete and well thought off. Plan is the guideline to achieve goals. Plan of action serves as a guide and helps a person in his way to success. Plan should be based on enough research and should consider every possibility. Also, it should choose a path which will have the best chance of success.
Evaluate Your Progress
Remember to evaluate your progress, no matter how big or small it is. Knowledge of your progress is a key factor in building the momentum required for the success in long term goals. Don’t get impatient with the speed of your progress; remember every small step is important in achieving long-term goals.
Expect a Bumpy Ride
Life is full with unexpected twists and turns and no matter how well you have planned, you will encounter problems. During difficult times you should show courage and stay on the set plan of action. Making a little adjustment with the plan is also permissible.
Remain Focused
Don’t get distracted from hype. Don’t put too much emphasis on short term goals as there are chances of you getting tired and giving up. Give your full concentration on the tasks at hand but after finishing your effort, take a little rest to alleviate your mind.
Reward Yourself
Reward yourself with gifts on achieving every small milestone. It will motivate you and will keep you focused. It will further help in achieving long term goals.
Be Patient
The way to success is on road through failure. A person needs to have patience to achieve his goals. Patience is an important factor in overcoming obstacles and preventing anger, distraction and exhaustion from coming in between. Remember, slow and steady always wins the race.
You might have some goals in your head right now, so why to wait? Just use the goal setting tips that you have learned in the article and fulfill your dreams.
