Key points in Setting Goals

Goal setting is an important method of accomplishing any achievement. However, there are some key points that you should consider before setting your goals.

Let’s take a look at what they are are:

* Deciding what is important for you to achieve and making your choices based on this knowledge

* Separating what is important from what is not relevant so that your focus is in the right place

* Motivating yourself to achievement to ensure their accomplishment

* Building your self-confidence based on the measured achievement of goals

* Ensuring that your goals are your own and no one else’s

You should allow yourself to enjoy the achievement of goals and reward yourself appropriately. You must draw lessons where they are appropriate, and feed these back into future performances. In learning from mistakes and errors, you are guaranteeing future success.

You would think that there would be more than five key points to goal setting (and there could be), but truly there are only five main key points. Everything else is just a branch of the main five points. Let me show you what I mean.

Your Goals
What is important to you?

Motivation
Your goals are your own

Self Confidence
Do for yourself not others

Get started
keep going

Lifetime achievement
Feel better about yourself

  What this shows you are the key points in setting your goals. It shows that they are the key points in the setting of your goals.

If you continue to add more branches to those four, you will see that they are all manifestations of what you are already seeing. As you continue to add more branches you will find that all these things will tie into the first branches.

How Goal Setting can go Wrong

Setting goals can go wrong for a number of reasons. When these things happen, it can be a bit devastating to the self esteem and can make the idea of setting any new goals a bit worry some or have it so you don't want to again.

Before we can look into what we can do about solving these goals setting problems, let’s see what the problems can be. This section is really no more than a more detailed explanation of the above section, but I felt that it needed a section of its own to help you set your sights solely on how setting your goals can go wrong.

If it seems repetitious, it is because it is! But it is very necessary for this; especially for quick referencing later.

Goals that we set up in the wrong way

* Often times we set our goal based on the Outcome this makes us focus on the end result immediately instead of taking your time to go through the steps to reach our goals properly. When you set goals properly you will be doing it in a step by step manner. Where you are using goals to reach the outcome you want , and if you fail to achieve the goal it will be for reasons outside your control. Other wise this can be very frustrating and can lead to loss of enthusiasm /motivation and feelings of failure.

Always set performance goals instead this will give you a higher chance of succeeding.

* Goals can be set unrealistically high. When a goal is perceived to be unreachable, no effort will be made to achieve it. Set realistic goals so that you can best decide how to go about achieving them.

* Goals can be set so low that you feel no challenge of benefit in achieving the goal. Setting goals has been a waste of time. Always set goals that are challenging enough to be worth the effort, but not out of reach.

* Goals can be so vague that they are useless. It is difficult to know whether vague goals have been achieved. If achievement can’t be measured against your expectations, then your self-confidence will not benefit from goal setting, nor can you observe progress towards a greater goal. Set precise and mesurable goals.

* Goal setting can be unsystematic, sporadic and disorganized. In this case certain goals will be forgotten, and the achievement of goals will not be measured and feedback will not occur into new goals. The major benefits of goal setting have been lost. Be organized and regular in the way that you use goal setting.

* Too many goals that aren’t given priority may be set, leading to a feeling of overload. Remember that you deserve time to relax and enjoy being alive and not solely focused on your goals and achievements.

Where goal setting does go wrong, not only are the benefits of goal setting lost, but the whole process of goal setting can fall by the wayside.
By avoiding these problems, and setting goals effectively as described in the previous section, you can achieve and maintain a strong forward leap into your future.

The 'Quantum Leap' Approach to Goal Setting

One approach to goal setting for yourself and other people is the 'Quantum Leap' approach. This tries to force intense activity by setting a goal that will need a 'quantum leap' in activity to achieve it.

This is a dangerous technique that should be used with a great deal of care. It is very easy for the whole process of goal setting to fall into problems where quantum leap goals are not met.

Similarly if you are really not convinced that a goal is attainable, you will not put effort into achieving it. Doesn’t all of this sound repetitious!

Next Time:
Get Specific

Reach For your Dreams, and succeed.