The art of setting goals
To get anywhere in life you may have something to aim at because to aim at nothing will mean you hit your target every time. Your goal (s) may be personal, financial. Material, or humanitarian but whatever is you have to put some strategies in place in order to give you the best chance of a successful outcome because having a goal is one thing but deciding to do something about it is another altogether and that requires effort.
The first thing you need to do once you have established what the desirable outcome is (your goal), the next thing is to decide what steps you need to take in order to make your goal(s) a reality. Unless you know where you are going you are not going to know when you have arrived. Imagine if you went to purchase a bus, train, or air ticket without naming a specific destination. Unless told the person who was selling you the ticket where you wanted to go they cannot help you.
Now let’s look at the different types of goals.
FINANCIAL GOALS
This can be a rather touchy subject with people unwilling to give up their pet spending habits or at least partially reign them in to enable them to achieve a better financial outcome for themselves and their families. Achieving your financial goals can be just a matter of transferring your spending in one area to a more productive area. It is not for me to tell you what you need to give up in order to achieve a better financial outcome for yourself but in order to know where your money is going you need to do some kind of stocktake on what you are spending your money on.
PERSONAL GOALS
These are goals that are important and meaningful to you. A good example of a personal goal would be “To learn a new language.” Another would be “To obtain my driver’s license.”
MATERIAL GOALS
These are things you won, an example of a material goal would be “To save up to buy a car.”
HUMANITARIAN GOALS
This is a goal to get involved in some cause that is meaningful to you. I don’t think anyone who has ever got involved in a cause suddenly woke up one morning and thought to themselves “What cause shall I get involved in today?” A humanitarium goal is established by some events that triggers your heart strings. It may be something you saw on TV and something you have experienced so it is better to leave this one open.
The basic rules of goal-setting is that they must be S.M.A.R.T goals-S=Specific, M=Measurable, A=Achievable, R=Realistic, T=Timed
Specific means the goal has to be stated in specific terms! A goal such as “to lose weight” or “to save money” are not specific goals because there is no way of knowing whether you have achieved the goal. A specific goal would be to state how much weight you want to lose and how much money you want to save. Here are a few examples of unspecific and specific goals;
VAGUE GOAL SPECIFIC GOAL
Lose weight Lose 5 kilos in two months
Save money Save $1000 in 12 months
Improve my times Run under 5 minutes for the mile
Once you have have specific goal, it is also a measurable goal. You will have something specific to aim for.
The goal has to be achievable, by that I mean through your own efforts. A goal of “to win the lottery” is not achievable because it cannot be done through your own efforts.
The goal has to be realistic but at the same time challenging. Only you can make that call. Be careful who you share your goals with because several dreamstealer’s will put limitations on you and expect you to live your life according to their viewpoint. What I am saying here is don’t sell yourself short.
There should be a timeline on when you want to achieve your goal by; this will prevent your goal from dragging on without any action being taken. Unless you give yourself a timeline which you want to achieve your goal by you will always run the risk of putting things off till tomorrow and fall back into old habits that you need to deal with in order to achieve your goal.