goals

Be it professional, academic, or personal, effective goal setting is easier said than done. Your goals can only turn into reality, if they were set correctly in the first place. Before you embark on setting your life goals, read through this guide to ensure you’re your goals are set in the right direction.

Determine what your goals should be.

Do this by allowing some time for contemplation, and thinking what is important to you. Brainstorm and list down all the things and targets you would want to achieve and eventually shortlist the most important ones.

Set your goals to be high in quality, not quantity.

Having a list of 20+ goals may not only be overwhelming to look at, but holds a higher chance to demotivate and slack you. To ensure accomplishing them, focus on the most important of your goals, which should ideally be 5-7 in number and be concise enough to be stored in your memory.

Make sure your goal setting is S.M.A.R.T.

That being said, S.M.A.R.T. goals refer to goals that are:

Specific:

To make your goals turn into reality, you need to identify what you exactly need to accomplish and set a course of action accordingly. Be as specific and unambiguous as you can when setting your goals, for example, ‘travel and explore’ may be too wide and vague a goal, but narrowing it down to ‘Travel and explore the historical cities of Europe’ may add some direction and precision to it.

Measurable:

Having a measurable goal is necessary to be able to track your progress and decide on future strategies to move towards it. If you wish to buy your own apartment worth $20,000, a measurable goal would be to save $5000 each year for four years and break it down into monthly savings to enable you to plan your expenses and keep an account of your savings.

Achievable:

Let your goals start with an action verb to make them attainable. Instead of formulating a goal to ‘be more consistent in Math grades’, make it more achievable by rephrasing it as ‘Solve two sample papers each week to obtain better grades in Math’

Realistic:

While an ambitious goal setting should call for getting out of your comfort zone and aiming high, one has to ensure that the goals are sensible and practical. Aiming to reach the top ten employees in your first month at work may prove to be too imaginative, work towards improving your productivity and getting a name under notable achievements for the month instead.

Time-constrained:

While “I will lose 20 pounds” maybe achievable and measurable, it does not provide a time limit to achieve. Planning to lose 20 pounds in four months makes the goal time bound and dividable into smaller monthly goals, hence making it more specific and reachable.

Write them down and review them frequently.

Once you have your goals written down, you have half the action plan to achieve them. Writing your goals down reassures you of your intention to make them happen and sets things in motion. A written goal also serves as an effective reminder and progress tracker. Review your goals regularly and evaluate your current progress towards achieving it, and determine your next steps to move towards them. It depends on your individual preference to review them daily, weekly or monthly, but make sure to keep yourself inspired, motivated and well-reminded of your objectives.

Avoid going public with your goals.

Remember they are your goals and should remain personal to you. No one else can associate the same feelings of enthusiasm, dedication and commitment to your goals. Unless you think that sharing them with a certain person, an expert, mentor, business partner or group leader, for example, may help you achieve your goals, avoid sharing them with others as it may make them less likely to materialize.

“A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”

— John C. Maxwell

⇒ Leaders Set Goals

Do you consider yourself a leader?

Sometimes we associate leaders with high-profile, powerful positions. 

 • The CEO of a Company.

 • The Principal of a School.

 • The President of the United States

And yes, these people are leaders.  But you don’t have to be rich, famous, or powerful to be a leader.  You just need to be a person who leads.

Leaders are needed in all areas of life — in families, amongst friends, on teams, in the workplace, and on campus.

They’re the ones that open doors for others to follow and set the standards by which we live.

Leaders can possess a variety of different characteristics and personality traits.  They might be driven, intelligent, creative, hard-working, charismatic, or even domineering.  But the similarity that one can find amongst almost every leader…  THEY HAVE GOALS!

“You can practice shooting eight hours a day, but if your technique is wrong, then all you become is very good at shooting the wrong way. Get the fundamentals down and the level of everything you do will rise.”

 —Michael Jordan

⇒ Fundamentals of Effective Goal Setting

In goal setting, technique is everything!

When I hear people explain that they are having trouble with accomplishing their goals, it is usually because they started off wrong from the beginning.  They had bad goals.  I don’t mean the things they wanted were bad.  It’s just that they didn’t set their goals up for success.

A goal is more likely to be accomplished if it’s designed with these qualities in mind:

 1. YOUR GOAL MUST BE POSITIVE

 2. YOUR GOAL MUST BE SPECIFIC

 3. YOUR GOAL MUST BE REACHABLE

 4. YOUR GOAL MUST BE PERSONAL

If your goal doesn’t satisfy these four requirements, you might run into some trouble along the way.   Over the next few posts, we’ll take a closer look at these characteristics that differentiate a good goal from a bad goal.

NEXT UP: How To Set Goals Quality #1: Make Your Goal Positive

Do you have any favorite goal-setting lessons, quotes, games, or activities that you use to teach goal-setting?  Maybe you know a great tip to help eager goal-setters reach their goals faster?  Leave your comments below!

I look forward to a great goal-setting discussion!