Six Principles of Goal Setting
Written by Susanna Palomares
Sunday, 16 January 2011
Reprinted from Women’s Media
Why is setting goals important? Because goals can help you to be, do, and experience everything you want in life. Instead of just letting life happen to you, goals allow you to make your life happen.
Successful and happy women have a vision of how their lives should be, and they set lots of goals (both short-term and long-range) to help them achieve their vision. By setting goals, you take control of your life. It’s like having a map to show you where you want to go. Think of it this way: Two drivers, each sitting at the wheel of her car. One has a destination in mind (her goal) which is laid out for her on a map. She can drive straight there without any wasted time or wrong turns. The other driver has no goal, destination or map. She starts off at the same time from the same place as the first driver, but drives aimlessly around, never getting anywhere, just using up gas and oil. Which driver do you want to be?
Winners in life set goals and follow through in pursuit of them. Winners decide what they want in life and get it by developing detailed plans. Unsuccessful people just let life happen by accident. Goals aren’t difficult to set, and they aren’t difficult to reach. It’s up to you to find out what your values, vision and goals really are. You are the one who must decide what to pursue and in what direction to aim you life.
Read the rest at Women’s Media.
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Personal Goal Setting
Re-printed from Mind Tools.com
Why Set Goals? Goal setting is used by top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your life. By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals, and you’ll see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. You will also raise your self-confidence, as you recognize your own ability and competence in achieving the goals that you’ve set.
Starting to Set Personal Goals. You set your goals on a number of levels:
- First you create your “big picture” of what you want to do with your life (or over, say, the next 10 years), and identify the large-scale goals that you want to achieve.
- Then, you break these down into the smaller and smaller targets that you must hit to reach your lifetime goals.
- Finally, once you have your plan, you start working on it to achieve these goals.
This is why we start the process of goal setting by looking at your lifetime goals. Then, we work down to the things that you can do in, say, the next five years, then next year, next month, next week, and today, to start moving towards them.
Goal Setting Tips
The following broad guidelines will help you to set effective, achievable goals.
Read the rest at MindTools.com