The Key To Setting Goals

by Karin
(Riverside, California)

We all want to be successful. Each and every one of us have things we want to achieve. What stands between many people and the success that they want is the fact that they did set proper and realistic goals. Notice those two key words, proper and realistic.

The key to setting goals is that you follow a few simple guidelines. You need to be positive. Don’t say Don’t screw up and miss Joey’s track meet, so 'Make it to Joey’s track meet 2 minutes early.
You also need to be precise. By precise I mean down to the date, the time and the amounts of how you will measure the degree of completion. You need to write your goals down.

You will also want to set your goals by priority. Start with what is most important and work your way down the list. By setting priorities you will have a direction and you will not feel as overwhelmed when looking at your goals. Prioritizing takes away the anxiety of looking at your set of goals and feeling like you need to get them all done NOW.

There are other things to consider when you write your goals so that you can accomplish those goals. Make sure that your goals are performance goals and not outcome based goals. This is a vital distinction. You want to set goals that you have the most control over. Your success or failure should depend on what you did or didn’t do, not because of something you had no control over.

Make sure that your goals are specific. Vagueness will not help you accomplish anything and it goes against the above recommendation of setting performance goals that can be measured.

Be realistic, don’t set your goals so high that it is not feasibly possible for you to attain them. There is nothing wrong with challenging yourself, it is through challenge that one grows. But by setting a goal so high that achieving it seems slight, you are setting yourself up to fail. That is just counterproductive, and doesn’t flow with the above recommendations of goal setting.

Conversely don’t set them so low that it will take little to no effort to achieve them. Remember challenge is good, it helps us grow, but setting them to low can not only give us a false sense of self confidence it will also make it harder for us to achieve our goals because we are wasting time on goals that don’t move us closer to achieving our main objective.

Make sure that you think your goal through. A well laid plan is a well thought out plan. It is important that as you think about how you are going to achieve the goals you have set that you are able to answer a few questions. Do I have the skills to achieve it? Will I need any help, assistance or collaboration with achieving this goal? What resources will I need? What obstacles stand in my way? Is there a better way for me to achieve this goal?

Karin