Goals 7 points you need to remember
Goals-Do you really want that result?-Will it help you in some way?
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What purpose will this goal achieve? Do you really want that result? Will it help you in some way? This is a very important point to consider. Oftentimes, we set goals without thinking about its importance in our life. We need to set priorities about the things we want out of life when we are setting goals. It is only when the goal is practical and purposeful will we stay motivated to achieve it.
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Whose help can you enlist? For most goals we set, we need a collective effort to fulfill them. That is the reason we should be clear in our minds about the people who can help us to achieve our goals.
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What constraints and difficulties will you have when you are setting your goals? Your goals and achievements is not going to be a simple process. You will have to exert yourself to some extent. You will have to do things that you won’t ordinarily do. But, it really helps if you know beforehand what kinds of difficulties you might have when you are trying to achieve your goals. Think about these difficulties and how you will surmount them.
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Of all the constraints, you will find that there is one constraint, which you can term as the primary constraint. In most cases, this primary constraint is money. It could be something else for you, like a mindset that you have developed and you need to fight with in order to reach towards your goals. Analyze this primary constraint.
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Make your plans to fight this primary constraint. You need to move on ahead, and overcoming this chief difficulty is going to take you several notches ahead towards fulfilling your goals. So, focus your energies on this one primary constraint and the remainder of your path will smoothen itself out.
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Enjoy the process. You have to always stay motivated and inspired. Read self-help books that can help you. Do things that you like to do, even as you are inching towards your goals. Do not forget your family and friends. Love yourself too. Treat yourself in the way you like, or your body is going to rebel against you and you will find goal accomplishment difficult.
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Look forward to the results. You should always want your goals to be fulfilled so bad that you can almost taste it. You want to make it happen. It is only when you are so relentless about it can you make a good deal out of your goal setting and, thus, your life.
These are the things you have to keep in mind about your goal setting. Try them out and you will find that things always work for you.
Goals in an Ascending Order in small steps.
There are many ways to set goals, but one of the ways that really works is to set your goals in a stepwise, ascending manner. Let us see what this means in greater detail.
Suppose you have to accomplish a goal of buying a new house. This is a huge goal, a life-changing thing, and definitely you are going to go all out when you are planning it.
However, is this going to be possible with just a single goal—“I want to have a house”? That’s quite unlikely. That is why you need to follow the stepwise manner.
The secret is to set your goals in such a manner that they go in an ascending manner. So, instead of one big lofty goal, you could have mini goals like “I will gather money for the down payment”, “I will start looking for a house”, “I will approach banks for a home mortgage”, etc. You could actually make a checklist of these goals and then keep checking them as you accomplish them one after the other.
This method of setting goals helps you in many ways than one. The most important benefit is that your confidence is boosted in more ways than you think. Firstly, when you see that your goal is a small, chewable nugget, then you are not intimidated by it. You feel that you can accomplish it, and therein builds your confidence. And, when you actually achieve that goal, your confidence is boosted to no end.
The other aspect—the subtler one—is that you can easily enlist support when your goals are smaller. Your family and friends won’t be scared of you because of huge goals. They will see the small goals that you may show them, and then they will even agree to contribute to it in whatever way they can. But, if you have huge loans, then people are just going to be too scared to even give it a try.
Also, it is an easier and much more practical process to set a small goal first, and then go on increasing as the earlier goals are accomplished. It is practical because the goal setting process hardly takes any time. You just have to think about a mini goal rather than get into the process of making a scary huge goal at the outset. This makes things easier and eventually you begin to feel that your life itself is headed in the right direct
Goals setting —Things That Can Help You Achieve Them
What are the things that can enable you to set satisfying, achievable goals? Here are some points that can help you.
Lucidity of Your Goals
Be very clear in your mind about the purpose of your goals. Why are you trying to achieve it? What will be the consequences? When you can see ahead and realize how the goals can help you, you become more focused on them. Also, chalk out a plan to achieve the goal. This plan should be crystal clear. It should be a step by step process. You should know what exactly you will do after you have achieved one particular step towards goal fulfillment. When you work with clear objectives such as these, you find that achieving the goal becomes much easier.
The Challenge Factor
We all love challenges. Not all of us will want challenges that break our backs, but we do want small challenges that we can fulfill. Hence, when you are setting goals, you should see to it that your goals challenge you. That helps you retain your interest in your goal fulfillment, and once you have achieved a goal which challenged you in some way or the other, you will find yourself much more exhilarated. You will want to do more; you will plan more. This helps you grow as a person.
Know Your Limits
It is also very important that you set goals within your limitations. This does not mean that your goals should just be what you have already done. As said before, set goals that are challenging, but you should have a very practical view of yourself too. You should know what you can do and what you cannot. If you set a very lofty goal, it will only sap your energies and you will not be able to accomplish you. This can disillusion you forever from setting further goals.
Stay Committed
You cannot achieve anything without the right amount of dedication towards it, and your goals are no exception. You have to spend some time and effort, you have to plan and you have to stay committed towards your goals. You cannot just set something for yourself to achieve and then forget about it completely. You have to keep moving in that direction. When you have set a goal, you have to realize that this is just one rung in the ladder of success. You have to climb that, and then you have to move towards the next rung. This is a continuous process that you have to keep at for the rest of your life.
The SMART Theory of Goal Setting
We like to abide by theories; they put a concrete spin on things. They make difficult tasks seem achievable. Even for your goal setting practices, there is a wonderful theory that you can use. This theory, popularly known as SMART, is a strategy you can implement to set goals that you can easily achieve. There are five aspects to this theory; each of the letters of SMART stands for one aspect of it.
S for Specific
The first aspect of goal setting is that you should be specific. Do not set something ambiguous which can be easily misconstrued. For example, “I want to become rich” is a very vague goal which can never be objective. For someone, earning $5,000 a month means they are rich, while another person may not think they are rich even they have earned a million dollars. Instead, the goal should have been more specific like, “I will earn a million dollars this year.” That’s just an example; you get the point.
M for Measurable
You should be able to measure the success of your goals. In the above example, you can easily measure the success of your goal, because you have revolved it around a number. Other examples are “I will shed 5 pounds this month”, “I will read 2 chapters of this book every day”, “I will add to my wardrobe by 1 new dress each fortnight” and so on.
A for Attainable
Though it is all right to aim for the moon, you should be practical about your goals. You should stay within attainable limits. It is important that your goals should not go beyond your individual capacity too much. It is all right to challenge yourself a bit, but if you go too far, you are only going to lose your motivation and give up.
R for Realistic
If you aim for something like being the first person to live on Mars, your goal achievement won’t be too easy. And if you set something like you want to meet an alien today, it is probably not going to happen. Be realistic when you are setting goals. They should be something that can be achieved, but are just out of your reach for the moment.
T for Time-Sensitive
Give time great importance when you are setting a goal. Everything revolves around the time factor. If you achieve in a year what you needed in a month, the goal is probably not going to help you much.
Keep this theory in mind when you are setting your goals the next time. You will find that you are not only able to achieve your goals, but you can get greater satisfaction out of such achievement.
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