How to set goals? Why's that such an important topic?
Well, getting what you want out of life really starts with deciding what it is you want.
Guess what... That's a goal. A goal is nothing more than deciding what you want in life.
Many people tend to over-complicate things. Understanding how to set goals is really very simple. Don't get bogged down with all the junk out there that just confuses.
Keep it simple – A goal is just something you want to do.
Setting a goal is like planting a seed Maxwell Maltz in his incredibly powerful book, Psycho cybernetics, teaches that the subconscious mind is nothing more than a machine that does what we tell it to do, automatically.
For instance....
When you decide to pick up a pen, do you have to tell your arm, hand and fingers what to do? Nope! All that happens automatically after you select the goal.
Did you have to tell your fingers what to do when they tied your shoes this morning? Same answer. Nope... They did the job automatically after you selected the goal.
So, setting goals is very similar. It's a process of telling your mind what you want to accomplish so it can go to work achieving whatever that is. Much of it happens automatically after you select the goal.
7 Simple Steps to Goal Setting Success
Here are 7 simple steps on how to set goals.
Start with the end in mind.
Stephen Covey, in his book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People", gives us a great way to do this.
He tells us to find a quite place where we can't be interrupted. Get a piece of paper and something to write with, and imaging our funeral.
By imagining your funeral, you'll really start to get an appreciation for the fact that eventually you'll be to that point. Only question is, what will you accomplish and how many lives will you impact for the better before getting there.
Brainstorm - write down everything that comes to mind
This will get you in the right frame of mind to start jotting down things you'd like to accomplish in your life. Don't judge, just write down everything.
You may want to think of things in the following areas:
Health
Wealth
Family
Community
Prioritize - which ones are most important
All you do here is figure out which goals on the list are most important so you can work on those first. You can also break them down into short term and long term goals here.
Next, You'll want to write them down in the positive, with dates
Use terms like "do" versus "don't do" and "get" versus "avoid". Use dates in order to give yourself a sense of urgency and also a time to evaluate.
Evaluate
Periodically you'll want to look back and see how you did. Did you achieve your goals? If so, great! This is where you celebrate.
Did you fall short? No problem, evaluate what went right and what went wrong. Tweak your strategy a little bit and keep moving forward.
