5 SIMPLE TIPS FOR SETTING POWERFUL GOALS

5 TIPS FOR SETTING POWERFUL GOALS

Goal setting is integral to living a life of fulfilment. It is the process of creating a clear image of what you want out of life and how you intend to achieve it. One of the most effective ways to set goals is to utilize the S.M.A.R.T. criteria. Experts advise that your goals should be specific, attainable, measurable, relevant and time-based. These five tools are necessary fundamentals for goal setting. However, in this article, I will show you some additional five tips which you can sync to your S.M.A.R.T. goals.

1. Get a journey book: Writing down your goals is the start of the process. Committing to achieving your goals and taking vital steps is essential; however, writing down the goals is the first place to start. If you must set accomplishable goals, you must be ready to write. Statistics show that people who write down their goals while setting it has a higher tendency of getting what they want than people who do not. Writing down your goals and sub-goals helps you to see your goals visually and gives you a feel of the difference it will make in your life when you finally accomplish them. According to former U.S. president Abraham Lincoln, the best way to predict the future is to create it. Creating the future, however, ought not to end in your imagination; get a beautiful writing pad and take out time to put your dreams on paper. Even though the human brain is more effective than a computer, you may not be able to recall all your small goals. In addition to the feeling of abundance, and remembrance that writing goals give, it also allows you to know your progress level and areas to work on. Don't only map out your overall vision, create a schedule to write and review sub-goals consistently. If you do not like the traditional pen and paper method, thanks to technology, you can choose to use digital tools and applications.

2. Develop a vision statement: Setting a goal without first working out your vision is like planning to embark on a journey without any destination. American motivational speaker Iyanla Vanzant once said that "If you don't have a vision, you are going to get stuck in what you know. And the only thing you know is what you have already seen". No matter how determined you are, you cannot move farther than your sight. Visions are driven by passion and dreams; they are reflected through real efforts to create actual results and help to establish a path toward a final goal that enables you to navigate. Before you begin a mission, you must first understand the big picture. It is that picture that helps you to figure out the decisions and steps that you need to take along the way. Taking actions without an overall vision is a waste of time and energy, which is why you must create a unique vision statement. A vision statement typically expresses your core value, skills and dream in about 30 to 40 words. For instance, if your career dream in life is to be influential in a particular field, you can develop an overall vision statement like "I desire to leverage my love for gaining new knowledge and creativity to become an influential content developer, to help start-up businesses grow by developing reasonably-priced sales-driving visual and written contents for them."

3. Set smaller and specific tasks: According to author and motivational speaker Dorie Clark "Setting smaller goals for shorter periods makes you more flexible and quicker to adapt to new information or changing circumstances." Attempting to accomplish your vision without first breaking them down is like trying to obtain a PhD without going through high school and college. Thus, after developing your overall vision statement, the next thing to do is to start pointing out the goals you want to attain at specific periods. Break broad goals into monthly, weekly and daily tasks. It would be best if you endeavoured that these smaller tasks are as specific as possible. See this step as having a huge piece of meat to eat. You don't just force it into your mouth at once; else you will choke. Cutting the large beef into smaller chunks makes it easier, faster and less overwhelming to eat the meat. Same way, to be a content developer in five years, you may have to set a smaller goal such as "Taking a 4-week long course titled - the rudiments of content creation on HubSpot", "Attending a course creation seminar" "Creating a few free contents for a friend's blog", etc. Being able to smash those small goals leads to overall progress, this will keep you motivated and happy along the way.

4. Create a measurement strategy: It was the ancient Greek Philosopher Socrates who said: "An unexamined life is not worth living." Although that statement was uttered many decades ago, it still holds today. Attempting to accomplish your goals without taking out time to evaluate your progress level can be disastrous, because you may not know if you are still on the right path. Therefore, when you breakdown your goals, be sure to include precise dates for deadlines, so you can measure the degree of your success. Measuring your progress is vital to your overall success. Research shows that it can be challenging to recall success details at the end of the performance period. This is because there usually is so many distractions and other commitments. But you can save yourself the trouble by creating a pattern through which you can use to correlate your small day to day task with your overall vision. You can even decide to get an accountability partner who will rate your progress level. It is through evaluation that you determine whether or not you are meeting up with your plans and also celebrate your successes.

5. Prepare your mind for failure: This sounds bizarre, right? Like, why does someone has to prepare for failure when the plan is to smash goals successfully? Well, all through the internet, there is loads of information about goal setting, but one often overlooked point is the fact that failure will always stand in the way of success, no matter how well you follow the rules. When it comes, many people are not ready for it, and so they lack what it takes to fight failure, allowing it to do what it knows how to do best – knock them down. So, here is the deal - you will fail. It's inevitable, so you might as well begin preparing for it now. Winston Churchill once asserted that "Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm." Realize that you never know the real value of success except you understand what it means to experience failure. Again, failure in itself cannot defeat you, but how you handle failure can raise or lower the risks of failing. Thus, you must acknowledge failure and put it in perspective. That way, you will not be overwhelmed when it comes, and you will not lose sight of your vision no matter how hard it hits you. According to research, the best way to attack failure is by owning up to your mistakes and learning from them. So, as you set your goals understand the role of failure and defeat it with resilience. Don't sulk you miss a scheduled task, instead, reschedule it and show failure who the boss is.

Just setting goals isn't going to make your life better or make you productive automatically. You must be sure that your goals will afford you the happiness and fulfilment you desire, and you must determine to work towards accomplishing them.