Goal Setting for Beginners

If you don’t know where you’re going, how on earth are you going to get there?

I’ve just wrapped up a big project that has sucked up a lot of my time and energy, so my personal goal for this week is to spend quality time with my family. I’m going to block out a big chunk of time on my calendar to do stuff with them. If I don’t schedule it, I know with certainty that work will take over and before I know it, the day will be gone. They will have spent all that precious time without me, while my eyes were glued to my computer screens as usual.

So while I have goal setting on my mind, I thought it would be a great topic for you too. I’d like to give you this opportunity to brush up on your goal setting skills or perhaps learn some new ones. Here are a few tips and I’ve expanded on them below.

1) Learn how.

2) Regularly set and review goals.

3) Set goals for each area of your life.

4) Make goals specific and detailed.

5) Set a time frame.

Learn how to set goals. Most of us don’t set goals because we don’t really know what we’re doing. Our parents didn’t teach us, they didn’t teach me, that’s for sure, they were too busy running a business. My teachers at school didn’t either. So how do you learn exactly how to do it? There are many powerful goal setting tools available online. Here’s mine.

Allow time on a regular basis for setting and reviewing your goals. Set a date, make an appointment with yourself and keep it. You might like to involve other people in your goal setting, especially if they have a vested interest in the outcome or you need their help to achieve your goals. If you do have other people involved, set appointments with them to get together and conduct goal setting and reviews.

Make sure you set goals around each area of your life. Don’t just confine them to business, like most people do, but take a look at your personal life too....after all the reasons we’re in business are always personal. So you might want to look at goals around fitness and health...or perhaps studying, research, feeding your mind.....don’t forget the family goals, sometimes we put off going out to dinner with our partners because we’re just too busy....too tired....

Make sure your goals are specific and detailed. Picture every small detail and include these in your overall goal. The more specific you get, the more vivid your mental picture of your goal becomes and you’re more likely to achieve what you’re setting out to do.

Setting a time frame for the ultimate achievement of your goal is a necessity, but just as important, if not more so, is setting time frames for each step towards you goal. You’ll be better able to keep track of your progress, the huge goal becomes more manageable and more real as you move step by step towards it and you get the added bonus of having lots of opportunities to reward yourself for achieving all those interim goals along the way.