How to set the right goals

There’s a lot more to goal setting than just picking a goal and moving forward. While taking action is important, it’s also important to ensure that you are setting the right goals at the right time, so that you can be successful. How to set the right goals? No-one likes setting goals and not achieving them, but sadly that’s what many of us end up doing.

 

In order to ensure that you’re setting the right goals for yourself, you need to answer the following questions:

 

How to set the right goals?

 

1. Are you setting specific and realistic goals?

 

It takes a little research to ensure that a potential goal is realistic. If you’re not sure if something is actually achievable, then you will need to continue with your research, but often we have a gut feeling of whether we can do something. Once you’ve set a goal that is indeed realistic, then you need to be specific enough in your description. This will make it easy to take the goal and work backwards to create a schedule of actions needed for you to succeed.

 

2. Are you setting the right goals for yourself?

 

 

Are your goals multifaceted?

 

Focusing on only one part of your life is a bad idea. People live multifaceted lives and consequently need to make goals for all areas of their lives in order to feel successful. If you have a wonderful business and career, but your personal life suffers, then no matter how successful you are, you won’t feel successful. If your goals aren’t inclusive you may feel like something is missing. Therefore, make sure your goals include something from each aspect of your life.

 

 

 

Is your timeline representative of real need?

 

Once you create the timeline for yourself to reach each goal that you’ve set, you need to truly consider how representative it is of reality. Say your goal is to be healthy and reduce your cholesterol by 10 percent in six months. However, you haven’t set aside the time needed to exercise and eat properly. You will struggle to find the time needed and you won’t succeed because something will always be in your way. For instance, if you’re going to exercise 30 minutes per day, setting aside only 30 minutes isn’t going to be realistic. You’ll probably need to set aside an hour to account for getting ready as well as cooling down or getting cleaned up to go back to work. It’s really about setting yourself up for success by being realistic.

 

 

 

Are you learning from failure?

 

Many times when setting goals and schedules, instead of learning from failure, people give up. You may have started to implement your goals and then realise you’ve forgotten to take certain things into consideration. If that’s the case, instead of giving up on the goal, adjust, learn and keep on going. You might find that in practice you have to rewrite all your goals and your schedule, but this is perfectly acceptable. Many people believe failure is something negative, but the truth is, if you don’t fail sometimes you’re not going to learn much and it’s likely your goals are too easy.

 

 

 

Do your goals represent your needs/desires or someone else’s?

 

A lot of people set goals that represent what someone else wants instead of what they want themselves. This can really cause a lot of bad feelings and resentment which can ultimately derail even the best laid plans. As you set your goals for your life, ask yourself if they’re really what you want for yourself or what someone else wants for you. Ask yourself if you’re okay with any goal you make being for someone else before you embark on your journey. It’s okay to do things because of someone else, but it’s important that you’re honest about that and make some goals for yourself too that don’t involve anyone else’s needs or desires.

 

 

 

Are you checking in often to stay on track?

 

Schedules are very important to the success of reaching any goal in life. To do lists never match up to a well laid out calendar of tasks and activities that get you from point ‘A’ to point ‘B’. Ensure that you look at your schedule every morning and every night and note when you succeed on sticking to your schedule and where you don’t. Noticing a pattern of activity can be helpful in fixing a poorly written schedule, as well as staying realistic about whether or not you’re sticking to the plan.

 

 

 

Are your goals focused positively?

 

When writing a goal it’s important to write them in a positive way, or at least a way that feels positive to you. In the quest to improve your life, try writing down a goal and then changing the words to sound more positive to see if it isn’t more motivating. For instance, ‘losing weight’ seems like a good goal (although it would need to be more specific!), but for some people it might signify deprivation. So instead, the person might frame the goal as ‘improving my BMI by 10 points’ or ‘improving my cholesterol by 10 percent.’

 

 

Are you focusing on too many goals set at one time?

 

Just as setting too few goals can be a problem, so can setting too many. Everyone has a personal life, a work life and points in between. We tend to want ALL. THE.THINGS and we want it all now. So, you may feel overwhelmed if you focus on all of your goals at once. Instead pick one personal goal, and one other type of goal to focus on until you reach them, and then you can add more goals as time goes on. You don’t need to do everything today. Slow and steady wins the race is a good motto to hang on to.

 

How to set the right goals for yourself? As you can see it takes some thought and consideration. Don’t try to set all your goals in one day – instead, set some goals in different stages and in different areas of your life and give a lot of thought to why you’re making the goal in the first place. What are your current goals? I’d love to hear in the comments.

 

 

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