The Basics Of Goal Setting

Goal Setting. How to plan and organize your resources and your time so that you can get the best out of your life.

Goal Setting is an open secret known by top athletes, successful businessmen and businesswomen and all types of high achievers in all different fields. Setting goals gives you short-term and long-term motivation and focus. It helps you to focus on the acquisition of required knowledge and helps you to plan and organize your resources and your time so that you can get the best out of your life.

Setting clearly defined short term and long term goals will enable you to measure your progress and achieve personal satisfaction once you have successfully met them. Charting your progress will also enable you to see the stages which lead to the actual realization of your goals. This eliminates the feeling of a long and pointless grind towards achieving your goal. Your self-confidence and level of competence will also improve as you will be more aware of your capabilities as you complete or achieve your goals.

The idea of goal setting involves deciding what you really want to do with your life and what short term and long term goals you need to achieve. Then you have to break down those goals into the smaller and manageable targets that you must complete in order to achieve your lifetime targets. Once you have your list written down, waste no time in tackling your goals.

Impossible Is Just A Word.

Everyone, at some point of his or her life, has dreamed of being somebody special, somebody big. Who hasn't fantasized about being the one who hits the game-winning home run? Who hasn't dreamed of being the homecoming queen? And how many times have we dreamed of being rich, or successful, or happy with our relationships?

Often, we dream big dreams and have great aspirations. Unfortunately, our dreams remain just that – dreams. And our aspirations easily collect dust in our attic.

This is a sad turn of events in our life. Instead of experiencing exciting adventures in self actualization, we get caught up in the humdrum of living from day-to-day, just barely existing.

But you know what? Life could be so much better, if only we learned to aim higher. 

The most common problem to goal setting is the word impossible. Most people get hung up thinking I can't do this. It's too hard. It's too impossible. No one can do this.

However, if everyone thought that, there would be no inventions, no innovations, and no breakthroughs in human accomplishment.

Remember that scientists were baffled when they took a look at the humble bumblebee. Theoretically, they said, it was impossible for the bumblebee to fly. Fortunately for the bumblebee no one has told it:- So fly it does.

On the other hand, some people suffer from dreaming totally outrageous dreams and not acting on them. The result - broken dreams and tattered aspirations. 

If you limit yourself with self-doubt and self-limiting assumptions, you will never be able to break past what you deem impossible. If you reach too far out into the sky without systematically working towards your goal, you will find yourself clinging on to the impossible dream. 

 

Try this goal setting exercise. Take a piece of paper and write down some goals in your life. Under one header, list down things "you know you can do". Under another header, write the things "you might be able to do". And under one more, list the things that that are "impossible for you to do".

Now strive every day to accomplish the goals that are under things "you know you can do". Cross them off your list when you are able to accomplish them. As you slowly check all of your goals under that heading, try accomplishing the goals under the other header:- the one that reads "you might be able to do".

As the items you wrote under "things I could do" are accomplished, you can move the goals that are under things that are "impossible for you to do" to the list of things "you might be able to do".

As you work through this process, you will find out that the goals you thought were impossible become easier to accomplish. And the impossible begin to seem possible after all. 

You see, the technique here is not to limit your imagination. It is to aim high, and start working towards that goal little by little.

Those who just dream towards a goal without working hard end up disappointed and disillusioned.

However, it also is unwise to set a goal that is truly unrealistic.

On the other hand, if you told someone a hundred years ago that it was possible for man to be on the moon, they would laugh at you.
If you had told them that you could send mail from here to the other side of the world in a few seconds, they would say you were out of your mind. But, through sheer desire and perseverance - and goal-setting, these impossible dreams are now realities. 

Thomas Edison once said that genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Nothing could be truer. For one to accomplish his or her dreams, there has to be had work and discipline. But take note that the 1% has to be a think-big dream, and not some easily accomplished one.

Ask any gym rat and he or she will tell you that there can be no gains unless you are taken out of your comfort zone. Remember the saying “No Pain - No Gain”. That is as true as it can be.

So dream on! Don’t get caught up with your perceived limitations. Think big and work hard to attain those dreams. As you step up the ladder of progress, you will just about find out that the impossible has just become a little bit more possible.

Goal-Setting - Easily Said, Easily Done.