Goals are very important part of anyone’s life and especially if you are just starting out a new life in any of your filed, then, setting and pursuing a goal is very vital part of your life.
People who live their life without goals often fail to achieve what they could have achieved. Some people have this philosophy of being contented all the time, which is good to some extent, but it does not work for you in the long run. You always need some solid motive to move on and this motive is provided to you by goals.
Goal setting and achieving is not one event, it need a thorough work out and a much planned process to achieve your goals. This process starts from identifying your goals in the first place because people often set some unrealistic and unachievable goals and in the end they will say that goals do not work.
This is not the case; you need to identify your true goals in the first place in order to achieve them.
In this whole discussion, I will demonstrate the whole process of identifying goals, chasing those goals and making them your life. This will be a very interesting discussion which you must read because it will help you to be successful in your life.
People often confuse goals with resolutions but goals are different from resolutions because resolutions are just to create a wakeup call in your life while goals can make your life far easier and better. If you take your goals seriously then, I am 100 percent sure that these will not only make your life more progressive and planned but they will also help you in resolving your problems more easily. If all of the above is not making sense to you then, you should continue reading because in this book, you will come across all the details.
First of all, you should know that how important goals can be in your life? What Are Goals
“Goals are fundamental key to success and achievement”
This definition also may sound little confusing but you need to understand that goals give you the meaning of life. Without goals, you just live your life while with goals; you can live your life with a purpose.
They give you a point of centralizing your energy. You cannot identify yourselves without proper goals in your life and they give you an opportunity to express yourselves to others. Without any goals, your life is just like empty fields while goals make this filed colorful and provides some useful meaning to your life.
In rest of the discussion, I will demonstrate the true meaning of goals, their implementation in your lives and different ways and motivations to achieve these goals.
Many of you will be familiar with goal setting techniques but in this discussion you will find some useful tips which will help you in every part of goal setting. You can say that this discussion is the essence of my life as I have learned through my experiences.
Some experiences were bad and some were even worst but all of such experiences have told me some useful things which I would like to tell you and you can make those experiences in your life better.
People often take just material goals seriously and they set a target to achieve but in my point of view goals are much broader than that. Goals can be made for achieving long lasting skills, relationships or they can be made for changing habits, routines, business or anything which you can imagine.
Smart Goals
1. MAKING YOUR GOALS MORE SPECIFIC
2. MAKING YOUR GOAL MEASUREABLE
3. MAKING YOUR GOAL MEASUREABLE
4. SETTING A RELEVANT GOAL
5. SETTING TIME LIMIT FOR YOUR GOAL
The Smart Way
This above picture tells you what “SMART” means in smart goals. There is saying by some author “A dream is a wish your heart makes, but a goal is a dream with a deadline”
This term which is smart goal can encourage you to develop some purpose and that too with a limited timeframe. You can make dreams your realities and once you start making your dreams your realities then, there will no way back and you will be traveling on merry way of success.
MAKING YOUR GOALS MORE SPECIFIC
If you are pursuing a target then, you need to be very specific and concentrate on just one thing. Similar scheme is applicable for goals because if you are distracted and double minded then, you may lose your path towards your goal. Another important thing in making your goals more specific is not to concentrate on multiple things instead, try to make your routine and focus your energy on just one purpose.
Even if you want to run multiple tasks for achieving some goal then, you should split these multiple activities in different time frames because if you run multiple tasks in parallel then, both of such tasks will be half done and they may have flaws in them.
For example if I want to write an EBook but at the same time I want to write articles for some paper then, I will try to separate these two tasks in different days of the week because I know that if I started these two thing in parallel then, both of these will become low in quality and I will not be able to concentrate fully on either of these things. This is the way to make your goal more specific.
MAKING YOUR GOAL MEASUREABLE
Measureable goal is another advantage which you can avail because measurement will encourage you to progress even more and you will become more devoted and strong for achieving your goal. I will tell you more about measurement and monitoring in coming chapters but here you should make sure that you must not set an unlimited goal. You should always set some easy land marks which you can achieve and mark your percentage of completion on these land marks.
If not precisely but, at least make a rough idea and make sure that you are getting closer to your goal with every land marks. These small measurements will not only help you to get closer to your goal but after every measurement, you can also alter your path, if you think that altering the path will rectify the problems.
This is the easiest and simplest way of making your goal getting strategy more refined. People often carry on one plan for the whole goal achievement and face lots of difficulties while you can enhance your goal getting path in so many ways and this can be possible only by making your goal progress measurable.
MAKING YOUR GOAL ATTAINABLE:
Attainable means realistic and making your goal attainable means that you should attempt something which should more realistic and possible in a proper and legal way. If you made some unrealistic dream your goal then, things will start fuzzy and you will lose control over your goal. There is another simple way of making your goal attainable and that is to split your goal in simpler tasks.
You can create subtasks from one big task and that will make it easier for you. For example, if you have to learn basketball then, you should start by just throwing the ball in one direction and on a particular height. This will take you to the next level and you will be able to learn other skills of basketball easily.
SETTING A RELEVANT GOAL
Making your goal as much relevant to your filed or personality as you can is another very important thing. If you made your goal by following someone else’s instructions then, it may happen that, your circumstances may not work for that goal. Every goal requires different set of circumstances because there are different skills, different requirements and different path for every goal to be achieved. You cannot just select some random goal from someone else’s life and start making your way towards that goal. This will lead you to just chaos and nothing else.
You need to think a lot before choosing a goal and make sure that you have selected a goal after a thorough research on every subject. You should select a goal which should be related to your filed of expertise for example if you are interested in sports then, you can make a goal to master some sports.
Similarly, if you are working in finance department then, you can select some goal like making your own finance company and there can be hundreds of such examples but never make some irrelevant goal like if you like sports then, you cannot set a financial goal.
SETTING TIME LIMIT FOR YOUR GOAL
It often happens that people set their goals for an unlimited amount of time. This is not the right approach to go because this will relax you too much and you will not be able to work consistently. On the other hand, if you have a deadline approaching then, it can make you to think about your progress rate. You can either make your progress fast or you can relax, depending on the time frame.
Effective way to do that is to make a partner and share your goal with him or her.
This will help you in a way that you will feel yourself accountable to that person. He or she will ask you for your daily of weekly progress towards your goal and that person will also tell you the exact measurement of your progress.
When you know that you have to answer someone’s questions then, you will feel more responsible and work even harder. Setting a deadline also means that, you have to complete your goal in order to start another one.
This will encourage you to complete your goal fast and faster you complete your goal, more time you will get for your other goals and so on.
Identifying Your Goals
1. THINGS TO LOOK FOR WHILE IDENTIFYING YOUR GOALS
2. TRY TO IMAGINE THE OUTCOME OF EVERY GOAL YOU WRITE
3. MAKE PAIN AND PLEASURES YOUR MOTIVATION TO ACHIEVE THE GOAL
4. RATING YOUR GOALS IS IMPORTANT
5. MAKING YOUR GOALS CLEAR IN YOUR MIND AND STARTING WORK OUT.
What Are They
Setting up your goals is the most important and crucial thing. People often cannot set goals for them. In fact they cannot set great goals for them because ordinary goals are easy to set but a goal which can give you an unexpected result and you do not know the way to achieve it is not a great goal at all.
THINGS TO LOOK FOR WHILE IDENTIFYING YOUR GOALS
There are hundreds of decisions which we make in our routine life and most of these decisions are made by keeping their pleasant or odd outcome in mind. This is the basic thing for making any kind of decision and this same strategy works for making your goals. You can make a great goal by idealizing its outcome. If you can sense this impact of that particular goal on your life then, this will turn into a great goal.
There are different types of goals which a person can set for him or herself. For example goals can be
· Financial
· Personal
· Spiritual
· Career
If your goals are related to any of these are all of these then, you need to think about each one of these turn by turn. Write down each and every point which comes in your mind. It may happen that you can have lot of points about one category while nothing for another. This is normal and there is no need to panic about this.
TRY TO IMAGINE THE OUTCOME OF EVERY GOAL YOU WRITE
After writing everything, you need to imagine the realistic outcome of every goal which you have written down in the above procedure. There is an effective way to do it, when you are finished writing your goals for each of the above category then, make a heading of pleaser and another heading of pain in front of every goal.
In pleasure heading, try to imagine the things which you will achieve after accomplishing that particular goal. You can say that in pleasure box, you will write the achievement of the goal and will tell yourself that after achieving this goal, you will be able to have these facilities and happenings with you.
Similarly in the other box which is pain, you will write all the troubles and tensions which you can possibly face while achieving that particular goal.
Make sure that you do not only think of that goal’s impact on your life and circumstances instead, think it in a wider way and think about its impact on other’s life too who are related to your life. It can often happen that a particular goal may give you some happiness and achievement but when you know its impact on other’s life then, this could be a devastating decision to chase that goal.
MAKE PAIN AND PLEASURES YOUR MOTIVATION TO ACHIEVE THE GOAL
You always need some inspiration to achieve a particular goal and this inspiration can come from lots of factors. If your pain box is full of thoughts then, you should motivate yourself to achieve that goal and use these points to encourage and progress.
You can categories the hurdles of your way by making a long term advantage against every pain. You can understand this fact from a very simple example. If you have a made your goal that you have to become smart then, you will face lots of difficulties during this process of being smart.
Now there are two points of views which you can adopt, you can either quiet dieting, exercise and other similar thing by saying that these tasks are too painful and you cannot continue their execution but there is another point of view which you can adopt and that is to take these difficulties as positive.
Think about the long term benefits that after being slim, you will feel more healthier, you will be free from tension of extra weight, your immune system will be improves, you will be more active in your work and other similar advantages.
Once you imagine these advantages in your mind then, you will feel very relaxed and whole goal achieving process will become easy and smooth.
This process is just like a belief because you will work according to some strict rules and in this strict execution, you will face lots of difficulties which will try to keep you away from the purpose but you should not be distracted. Instead, these difficulties should encourage you even more and you should think about the bigger advantages which you will get after completion of your goal.
RATING YOUR GOALS IS IMPORTANT
Another aspec6t which people often forget is to set the priorities of each goal. You should try to set priorities for every goal and work on that particular goal according to that very priority. For example, if I have decided that I have to write 10 articles out of 20 in one day then, I will short list the topics which I like most and topic whose priority is higher than the others. This will not only make my work better but it will also make sure that everything is going according to plan.
Another very important thing is to back yourself even for some wrong decisions because once a philosopher said that
“Once you decide something then, stand on it like a man and never back down, no matter what the consequence is”
This small quote can tell you lots of very important things and firs of it tells you about self-determination and making sure that you are not wrong in anything. Give logic for everything and try to follow that logic for the rest of struggle.
Coming back to rating of your goals, you should rate your each goal with numbers from 0–10. Set their priority according to their number. Make your lowest priority goal number 10 goals and make your highest priority goal your number 1 goal. This means that you need to work for your number one goal, no matter what the circumstances are but you can relax a little about your goal number 10.
MAKING YOUR GOALS CLEAR IN YOUR MIND AND STARTING WORK OUT
This is another very important part of goal setting process that you need to make your goal clear in your mind. The best method which you can adopt for this is to make an effective measuring system that can measure the progress and completion level of your goal. Without a measuring system, your goal will not be very getable. This measuring system can be numbering or it can be just “yes/no” or it can be some intermediary process.
It can be explained with a very simple example that I made a goal that I will make my writing speed up to 50 words per minute toll 1st July 2011. This is a very simple goal but you can adopt so many methods to measure your progress, there is software, online programs or you can just do this with your stop watch.
This process makes your goal simple to study and you should try to make them as simple as you can because the simpler they are, better completion strategies you can make and so on. While you are chasing a meaningful goal, you should keep away from terms like, improve, help, change or make better because these terms will lead you to lots of confusion and once you get confused about the effectiveness of your goal then, the whole idea of setting up goal will die.
Tracking And Monitoring Your Goals
1. WORKING TOWARDS YOUR GOAL
2. PROGRESS MEANS CLOSING ONTO SUCCESS
3. CHANGING YOUR GOAL OR MODIFYING IT IS CHEATING WITH YOURSELF?
Keep Track
Tracking your goal progress is an ongoing process because it can take you lots of time to complete one goal. During that process, you need to closely look at your progress towards the goal because if you did not maintained a steady pace then, you will get distracted from your goal.
Monitoring reminds you of your goal and gives you more motivation. The more time you spend in thinking about your goal, more motivation you will get out of it.
WORKING TOWARDS YOUR GOAL
You can make the progress towards your goal easier by splitting up a complex task into simpler tasks. This eases up the whole burden of working day and night. You can make simple tasks and these tasks can be as simple as to look at a list and choosing one number because this is not about the volume of the task but it is all about taking a step towards your goal.
You can make a simple strategy to check your goal progress. For example when I set a goal that I need to make my typing speed 50 words per minute then, I will have so many ways of checking it. there are software, online tool and other things which can check my typing speed and more I check, more it will motivate me to work even harder to increase it.
I have seen people who get bored by executing same and complex tasks and in the end, they give up on their mission. This is just another way to give up your goal while you can always make your way interesting and colorful by making tasks simpler for you. For example, if you have to write a book on people’s opinion about a particular subject then, instead of doing research for one week and writing in next week, you should split the tasks and gather information for 3 days and write about that information for three days.
This change will not let you to get bored and your work will also be done in proper way. Another way of making your progress more concrete is to share your goal with someone.
This strategy works for many people because when they know that they have to answer someone about their daily of weekly progress then, they work even harder. This partner can be your wife, your hubby, your best friend, your son, your daughter or anyone whom you trust.
The progress report also depends upon the volume of goal. You can make a weekly schedule, monthly or annual as it all depends upon the volume of your goal. For personal goals I will recommend weekly reporting because that is best suited approach.
PROGRESS MEANS CLOSING ONTO SUCCESS
If you can measure progress of your goal then, it means that you are on the right path. Progress measurement, as I mentioned above, depends upon volume of your goal because you can schedule either weekly reporting, daily or even annual but reporting is must. When you see that you are making considerable amount of progress then, it will take you to one step closer to your goal.
You can note your daily or weekly progress and when you will see at this progress chart, then, it will keep you interested in your main goal because you will start getting the fruits of that goal with every little step that you will take.
CHANGING YOUR GOAL OR MODIFYING IT IS CHEATING WITH YOURSELF?
There is another common misconception about goal setting process that you cannot change your goal. This is a wrong concept because you can modify your goals according to your progress. If you are experiencing more problems than expected then, you can always change your goal course.
The main goal should not be altered but you can always change your approach to the goal. If you are failing in approaching to your goal and your progress measurement system is showing you very less or zero progress then, you should alter the whole course and start making a new effective plan.
Some people say that changing goal course is not a good idea because it can discourage you from approaching the goal. This is true to some extent but you can alter your course once and do not make it a habit to change the whole plan after regular intervals of time.
Try to execute your steps with perfection and get results. If you started to experiment a lot then, this will disturb the whole momentum and it may happen that you get tired of struggling.
The basic theme of goal should never be changed instead; you can just modify your approach according to the latest suitable circumstances. Circumstances do not remain even all the time and they can change with times. It may happen that you had set your goal and its progress path according to some different circumstances in mind and when these things change then, they do not give any kind of ultimatum.
Completion Of Goals
1. MAKE YOUR GOALS EVEN BETTER
2. HELP OTHERS IN ACHIEVING SIMILAR GOALS
3. IMPROVE YOUR NEXT GOAL FETCHING PROCESS
4. WHAT’S NEXT AFTER COMPLETING YOUR GOAL?
Finishing
If you have been reviewing your progress regularly according to the above mentioned procedure of monitoring then, time will come when, you will see that your goal is achieved.
By making the monitoring process simple, you will be able to answer the question that whether your goal is completed? And if the answer comes in yes then, you should not wait to celebrate.
Write down your achievement and make it a motivational goal for all of your future goals. Once you complete one goal then, it can motivate to get you lots of others which you have set. You can start from completing simple and personal goals and then develop a solid strategy to achieve bigger goals which can change the whole scene of your life.
MAKE YOUR GOALS EVEN BETTER
Once you achieve a certain goal then, next step is to either concrete that achievement for rest of your life or you can take it as a land mark and progress further in same field. If your goal, which you have achieved, was just a personal habit then, making this habit permanent for your life time.
Similarly, if the goal, which you achieved, was some financial, then, you can make it better by increasing your target. Great goals are made by this technique because you cannot become silent after accomplishing a certain point instead; it always has some room for making it better or achieving more.
There is no end to life’s achievements and you can carry on with these achievements forever. There is better of everything and you should never stop until you not only get better but you should also get the best for yourself. These things sound little revolutionary but there is nothing unachievable about them and with very little extra effort and struggle, you can always achieve everything best in your life.
If you look at the successful people like Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, Jinnah, Einstein or a successful businessman in your neighborhood, a successful colleague of yours who has excelled in his field then, you will see one thing in common that they never stopped after getting one good thing instead they keep on exploring new ideas and new visions. This ideology of exploring best from better is the key to success and you need to implement it in your life.
HELP OTHERS IN ACHIEVING SIMILAR GOALS
A very important step for keeping your goal alive is to help others in achieving similar goals or exactly same goals which you have achieved. You can do this by motivating them, encouraging them, mentoring them or just influencing them with your goal result.
This will not only help them but it will also help you to keep progressing more and achieve some more important goals. In order to make others do similar tasks, you need to tell them your story without any exaggeration.
Tell them about the difficulties and hurdles which you have crossed while approaching to that certain goal. Modesty is another thing which you must possess and especially when it comes to convincing others for achieving similar goals, you must have this quality. If you have gone through some difficulties and you know another easy way out of these difficulties then, you must tell this alternate method to others because it will make their goal fetching process easy and smooth.
IMPROVE YOUR NEXT GOAL FETCHING PROCESS
You can also make your next goal getting way better, smoother and easier that the past experience because one successful experience will not only give you more motivation but it will also tell you lots of new techniques.
You can do this by reviewing your whole process of goal fetching and taking into consideration all those areas which either helped you or made things difficult for you. In this way, you can rectify all the problems in that procedure and make it smoother.
One successful goal chase can make the next goal chase even better and that’s why, it is always advised to chase smaller and easier goals first because that will make your procedure and techniques better and when you will go after a big goal then, your process will so smooth that you will not face any severe difficulties.
WHAT’S NEXT AFTER COMPLETING YOUR GOAL?
I have seen many people resting after they reach to their first goal. This is not the right approach because first goal is just the start and you need to progress lot more than that. I mentioned some categories in start of the discussion which were
· Financial goals
· Spiritual goals
· Personal goals
· Relationship goals
These are just 4 categories but you can think of as many as you want and in every category, you can find hundreds of goals. Humans are full of mistakes and all you need is just some motivation to correct all of those mistakes.
Our whole life is a learning process and if you keep learning throughout your life then, you can always make your life better with every passing day.
If you have achieved your financial goals then, you can make them better and move on to the next category because once you achieved your financial goals then, priority of these goals will be changed but they will not end. You can keep them little lower on the list and concentrate on other high priority goals.
If you have read all of the above discussion, then, you must know the basic steps which you need to take for a proper and effective goal chase.
In short, you need to identify you goals at first and identify it according to your proper needs because if you set your goal by watching someone else then, it may happen that you do not get those circumstances in which he or she achieved his or her goal. Best way is to analyze your personality and look for the fields that need some tuning.
Once you have identified those fields then, you can start to think about some improvement and these improvements will ultimately become your goals.
You will face lots of problems in achieving those goals but if you apply an effective measuring and monitoring system then, you can always achieve your goal.
With proper monitoring, you can also identify your progress towards your goal and best way is to sp-lit up the complex tasks into simpler tasks because that will give you motivation to continue your work by getting you close to your real goal. If you keep attempting some complex tasks then, you may get discouraged and lose hope.
Setting up goals and completing them is just like dreaming and then, making those dreams come true. This is very fascinating but it requires highest level of skill and enthusiasm. No doubt, the end reward are priceless but people often get lazy after getting beat up once or twice but this is the most crucial trick that you have to get up every time and say to yourself that you can do that.
You should erase the word impossible from your dictionary and make it I am possible. If you can do that then, lots of thing in your life will become easier.
If you have read and understood the whole discussion then, you should implement it in your life and see the results for yourself.
May you get best from your life!
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