Goal Setting: Where Do You Want to Be?

Thoughts are active, and billions of them pass through our minds, many of which are the same thoughts repeating themselves over and over again from day to day.

If you concern yourself with taking the proper steps to reach your goals, focusing your thoughts, doors will open for you, showing you people, resources, ideas, and everything else you need but were unable to see before.

Start today to define an accurate description of what you want to do. Knowing what you want to achieve and believing you can achieve it are the first steps to getting there.

Think it. Everything begins in your heart and mind. Every achievement, great or small, began in someone’s thoughts and came from their desires.

What if you were allowed to have anything, regardless of time, money or resources? What would that be? You want to be a dreamer of all the possibilities for yourself, your family, and your business.

Believe it. You can dream big, but your dream for yourself must be believable. You must be able to believe that if certain things take place, if certain criteria are met, it can be accomplished.

Visualize it. A great achiever has the ability to see his desired end result in his mind’s eye. He pictures himself right in the thick of whatever it is he wants – sitting at his desk as the CEO of his new corporate headquarters even if he’s sitting on a plastic garden chair in his garage ‘headquarters’.

What you rehearse in your mind is the imprint your subconscious will believe is real because it doesn’t know the difference between what actually happened and what you tell it has happened.

So what pictures are you playing in your mind?

Share it. Many people like to keep their visions and dreams a secret. They believe that telling others about their plans will put a jinx on them or that someone will steal their ideas. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Unless you have a patentable idea without a patent, don’t keep it all to yourself. Don’t leave it a quiet dream that has no energy. The more you say it, in this case by telling others about it, the more energy you give to it.

The more often you tell others about your plans, the more you will start to believe it yourself.

Plan it. A dream without a plan is just a fantasy. Things rarely ‘just happen’. Most things that ‘just happened’ were the product of much planning and preparation and thought.

Honing your plans is something you’ll need to do on a regular basis, thinking through details, writing them down and breaking them into manageable tasks.

Set a timeframe for achieving each portion of your plan. If you hit a snag or miss your deadline, simply adjust your plan, find any flaws, and recalculate your timeframe. Keep moving.

Research it. As you start out to accomplish each task or milestone in your plan, you will inevitably be doing research, seeking out books, classes, tutorials, and mentors along the way.

Information and insight can come from the most unlikely places. Even the most seemingly insignificant conversation can lead you to a gem of knowledge that can help you reach your goals.

Don’t discount what others have to offer to your game plan, but in the end you are the one who will make any final decisions regarding how to proceed.

Work on it. We would all like to sit at the beach and let the world come to us. But successful people are generally the hardest workers, not surprisingly.

Successful people consistently work on their goals. If you work every day on what you want to achieve, even in small degrees, you will get there in the end. At some point, you will pick up steam and your work will have what’s known as a ‘snowball effect’.

The more you see things happen in the right direction, the more you will want to put energy into achieving your goals.

Keep your vision up front in your mind. You are that CEO. You have that beautiful home. You have lost all that weight.

Enjoy it. Don’t forget to balance your life with the joy of living. Enjoy the process of planning, working toward, and building your vision into reality. Knowing where it will lead is what will keep you going.

You will need to apply self-discipline, lots of it. A good strategy is to reward yourself along the way, perhaps at certain milestones in your plan. This could take the form of treating yourself to dinner at a luxury restaurant, taking the weekend to go camping, or doing something else you enjoy.

“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that all was vanity [in vain]. But the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes and make it possible.” (T. E. Lawrence)

• You must be determined in your efforts, reinforcing your belief that what you want to achieve is possible.
• You must take the responsibility for your actions or inactions.
• You must educate yourself regarding the steps you need to take to get to where you want to be, reorganizing or adjusting your plan along the way as more doors and opportunities open for you.
• You must be motivated to take action. This is the only way to get to where you want to be.

Setting goals with deadlines creates a tangible expectation, something your mind can relate to and something it can convert into physical reality.

If you want to achieve anything, you must master goal-setting. Don’t overwhelm yourself with pressures that will only result in harmful stress. You can take it slowly, but you must set goals with deadlines for completion of tasks within that plan.

• See it, say it, and write it down. This is the step that reinforces what you’ve put into your subconscious. Setting a goal and writing it down is a physical reminder of exactly what needs to be done.
• Break it down. Breaking your plan down into manageable tasks allows you to see the order in which things need to be done.
• Set timelines. This will give you a clear picture of when you need to accomplish this portion of the plan. This will keep you on track so you don’t become overwhelmed. Be honest with yourself about how much time you have available to do these things. Understand what you need to do and be practical about it.

There are many time management training tools available but one of the most useful is the S.M.A.R.T. method which first appeared in the November 1981 issue of Management Review. It perfectly explains how goals should be set up.

The S.M.A.R.T. Method.

(S) – Specific. A goal should be clearly defined, using details to describe specifically what the goal will be. So it’s not enough to say “I want to lose weight.” You must specify exactly what amount you want to lose. “I want to lose twenty pounds.”

(M) – Measurable. You must be able to measure a clear beginning and ending to your goal, with measurable results. “I want to lose twenty pounds in thirty days.”

(A) – Active. You must take active responsibility for achieving the goal.
Passive: “I’m going to lose twenty pounds if I ever get enough time to go to the gym” This puts no responsibility on you.
Active: “I’m going to lose twenty pounds by the end of January.”

(R) – Realistic. Any goal you set must be realistic. “I’m going to lose one hundred pounds in thirty days” is not only unrealistic, it’s dangerous, but losing twenty pounds in thirty days is very realistic and doable with the proper tools and actions.

(T) – Time Bound. Every goal must have a timeframe within which it will be completed. Businesses don’t reach goals by saying to their employees “Here’s a project for you, but it really doesn’t matter when you get it done.” When will you have those twenty pounds off, exactly?

Having your S.M.A.R.T. plan in writing will keep you organized and allow you to see where you are in the process rather than trying to remember what you have to do and when.

Record your victories

It’s not uncommon to forget about all the little successes you’ve had along the way, but small things matter. They mean something.

Most of us need a little help in discovering our talents. Start keeping a success journal to validate your successes. It will encourage you and help you grow.

Did you stick to your diet, complete a task on your goal plan, finish a book, or step out of your comfort zone in any way? Anything that is positive is a success.

This is part of self-love. When you’re feeling low, like you’re not getting anywhere, go through your journal and read all the successes you’ve had. Ask yourself why you succeeded at them.

• What did I do differently?
• Why did something work?
• How do I feel about completing this?

While you’re asking yourself these questions, remember that you are the one who accomplished this.

We all tend to remember the big highlights in our lives, but it’s all the small-scale successes that add up to great self-esteem. This simple strategy will go a long way to encouraging you and keeping you on track.

The Law of Attraction is clear and unfailing. You attract into your life what you think about most. When you implement a believable achievable plan of action to achieve your goals, you’ll find yourself thinking about nothing else.