Many, when confronted with goal setting are far too ambitious only to the extent that they do not break down the goals into manageable steps.
For example if you want to reduce your credit card debt and it stands at say, $20,000 and you want to do it in one year, you need to allocate a certain amount each month if you’re paid monthly and if paid fortnightly you will need to allocate fortnightly amounts for that purpose.
If you are self employed on the other hand, you will need to devise other more specific strategies to liquidate the debt without this goal distracting you from the original goal of your business.
There are a few prerequisites, for instance if you want to lose weight you will have to begin a fitness and health program and enlist the help of someone who has done it in a healthy and intelligent way. Not only that you will have to have a commencement date and a time frame each week, so many times a week and for a specific period of time, say one year.
If you are not so good at disciplining yourself you might need a partner, coach or mentor to make you accountable; no excuses except perhaps for Sunday.
Whatever you have in mind it will have to be achievable and conceivable and it will really help if you can see the end and ‘feel’ the goal attained. The “feeling,” of the goal accomplished can rapidly accelerate your process as the emotional factor will ramp up your attainability factor.
Perseverance and determination are two qualities that are similar however perseverance keeps on when determination may have let you down. When you lose determination “feel” the goal once again accomplished, and the emotion behind that memory will enable you to keep your action on track. You may have read many times that emotion is “feeling” in action and this “feeling” is one of the strongest drivers to assist you in accomplishing your dreams and making them come true.
When you have come this far you need to see that your goals are realistic otherwise if you falter, as can happen, the distance from the goals is often too far and we become disheartened. Remember to break them down into small bite size pieces.
Your goals have to be seen, felt or observable, namely they have to be tangible and real. If you cannot see them straight away, you might be able to see those same goals realised in other people’s lives, so that you can trust that if they can do it you can do.
So to recap, your goals have to be specific enough, you need to be able to break them down into smaller more measurable components, they need to be achievable, real enough to see, feel or visualise or you need to see them manifested in someone else’s life.
The most important quality of all is that the goal or goals will need to inspire you with spirit and a fire to ignite the fuel needed to overcome all the negative feedback from yourself, others, natural laziness and the many obstacles life provides, irrespective of your greatest dreams.
Image Credit:Unsplash.com/Rudi Strydom
Chris Borrett