You wouldn’t”t build a house without a plan; you don’t go on holiday without some idea of the travel plan but when it comes to life how many of us plan for the future?
When you set yourself goals, you put yourself in control. You give yourself a sense of purpose and you provide yourself with a focus. When you set goals you sort out what is important and what is irrelevant in your life.
The process of setting goals helps you choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts. You’ll also quickly spot the distractions that would otherwise lure you from your course.
There are many reasons why people don’t set goals. They may have a fear of failure, fear of success, too comfortable, too busy or they don’t know how to or why they should. The fact is that goal setting works. Goals give you a sense of direction to channel your abilities, efforts, and resources. Good goals point you where you want to go – they create an immediate focus.
Dr. Maxwell Maltz, author of the classic Psycho-Cybernetics, said that human beings have a built-in goal seeking “success mechanism” that is part of the subconscious mind. This success mechanism is constantly searching for ways to help us reach our targets and find answers to our problems. According to Maltz, we work and feel better when our success mechanism is fully engaged going after clear targets.
By setting goals, you are able to move beyond your self-doubts, you are able to overcome your fears and to think ‘successful’ which leads to being successful. Goal achievement impacts on your self-esteem by giving a huge boost to your confidence and improves the quality of your life.
Good goals should be
- Positively stated, (I can, will, want to),
- Inspiring,
- Specific and measurable. (How will you know when you achieve your goal? What will be different?),
- Broken down into manageable chunks. (Small chunks make the goal less overwhelming and therefore more attainable).
- Within your control to achieve
- Given deadlines (It’s important to set deadlines otherwise we’d always be putting things off).
Using a goal planner write down the big goals you want to achieve in order of importance. Pick one that you want to focus on right now. Now write down the small goals that will help you to get there. This will serve as your action plan.
For example if your large goal is to study for a degree your small goals could be to:
- Research the best courses
- Find out about funding
- Enrol on the course etc.
It’s good to share your hopes and dreams but only with like minded people. If there are negative people around you who have never encouraged anything you have wanted to achieve or who don’t want you to change then, keep your goals to yourself. Only share them with those who will uplift and encourage you.
When you think of quitting just remember President Obama perceived it and achieved it.
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