Setting Personal Goals

First of all you need to have a personal vision statement for setting personal goals. Your personal vision statement will constantly remind you where you want to be at a specific time in the future. Then you need to set personal goals for yourself. Personal goals are specific, achievable objectives that you need to meet at specific times in order to actualize your dreams or your personal vision statement. Your personal goals will focus you throughout your life and encourage you to reach your dreams.

The best way to set your personal goals is to create SMART goals:

• S = Specific


• M = Measurable


• A = Attainable


• R = Realistic


• T = Timely

Specific

A specific goal has a much greater chance of being attained than a general goal. To set a specific goal you have to answer the six "W" questions:

• Who: Who is involved?


• What: What do I want to accomplish?


• Where: Identify a location.


• When: Establish a time frame.


• Which: Identify requirements and constraints.


• Why: Provide specific reasons, purposes or benefits of attaining the goal.

EXAMPLE: A general goal would be, "Get fit." But a specific goal would say, "Join a gym and work out 3 days a week for 45 minutes each day."

Measurable

Create concrete criteria for measuring your progress toward the accomplishment of each of your personal goals. If you can't measure it, you can't manage it. As you measure your progress, you will stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the excitement of accomplishment that encourages you to keep up the sustained effort needed to attain your goal.

Select a goal with measurable progress, so that you can see the change taking place. To establish if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as "how much? how many? how will I know when it is accomplished?"

How will you know when you have reached your goal? You have to be specific about your goal. A goal such as "I want to read 10 books of at least 100 pages each before the end of the year" indicates the specific target to be measured. A goal such as "I want to be a good reader" is not measurable.

Attainable

If you set goals that are too far out of your reach, you would most probably not commit to doing in the end. However, a goal needs to stretch you slightly so you feel you can do it and it will need a real commitment from you.

You can reach almost any goal you set when you plan your steps sensibly and create a time frame that allows you to carry out those steps. Goals that may have seemed far away and out of reach ultimately come closer and become achievable, not because your goals reduce in size, but because you grow and develop to match them.

Realistic

A goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work in order to be realistic. A goal can be both high and realistic, and you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. But make sure that every goal corresponds to a significant progress. Most of the time a high goal is easier to attain than a low one, because a low goal brings about a low motivational energy.

Timely

You have to set a time frame for the goal. Placing an end marker on your goal gives you a clear target to work towards. If you don't set a time frame, your commitment is going to be too vague. Without a time limit, there's no pressure to start taking action immediately. The time frame must also be measurable, attainable and realistic.