Setting Personal Goals

Setting Personal Goals Yourself

Setting a personal goal is embracing the idea and ability to form a new habit or achievement. A habit or lifestyle change that you devote your effort and time into achieving. An act as a guide to an individual’s day to day activities. Many successful individuals have over the years share their personal goal achievements as being the cornerstone to their success. The reason why people set goals is to be able to identify and overcome certain challenges in their lives. Sounding at all familiar?

In your personal or business life, you normally look to climb a level higher than you are at currently. Individual goals are meant to inspire you. To achiever bigger things and potentially become a more productive person in your community. Goals tend to give you a sense of direction in the aspects of life, love, family and career. There is no one secret sauce of how to make perfect personal goals. Neither are they engraved in some platter hanging in the halls of corporate 500 companies.

S.M.A.R.T. Goal Setting

When setting a personal goal, you need to ensure it is focusing on your life. You can not set personal goals for someone else; neither can some else set your goals. The goals need to revolve around what you dream to achieve. Ensure your goal is geared towards improvement and enhancement of your life; otherwise, it beats the need of calling it a goal.

Specific

A goal will always remain a dream unless you put it down on pen and paper; action is required to make it a reality. A goal clearly written down will be easier to remember. Helping it be more than a vague dream. You need to put reminders of your goals wherever you are. This way you are always nudged easily to remember what you need to do.

Measurable

Personal goals must be measurable. This means at various stages of achieving your goal, always take the time to reflect on your progress and success.   You do not necessarily need to have goal setting talks or have a coach to measure your performance. You can be your own custodian as they say.

Attainable & Realistic

Be crystal clear with your attainable goals, this allows you to avoid any self doubt. Attainable is the “A” in the word SMART. When setting personal goals, your level self-confidence in your goal will support you success as well. Do not copy someone else’s goal. Everyone is unique and so are your goals. Be very realistic with yourself. If anybody knows your capabilities, it is you. This means write down your goals. Be sure they are realistic. That they are not way beyond what your current skill set or skills you are currently learning. If they are not realistic then you will continually live in disappointment. Realistic is the “R” in SMART.

Timely

The kind of personal goals you make must be timely. (“T” in the word SMART). They can either be immediate, short term or long term goals. Either way, make sure you set a reasonable time you think you need to accomplish your goal. This will help determine the kind of effort you put into them. Remember to keep in mind, all goals are important and procrastinating will only negatively impact your success.

Setting personal goals sometimes needs the involvement of other people. This includes your family, peers or mentors. These people will help you be true to yourself when it comes to the kind of goals you are setting. However, be careful of taking advise from people close to you, or who have an emotional involvement. Their own fears may hold you back from being successful. Be ready for their criticism and learn not to focus on negative comments. Find friends or family members who are happy for you and share in your views. Let them be your part of your support system. They will be very instrumental in keeping you on track and constantly reminding you of your goals. They can even reward your efforts once you get to achieve your goals or milestones.

You commitment means you need to never give up on achieving personal goals. If it is overly challenging, you may need to do some soul searching to determine where you are on the right path. If the problem may be in the approach or strategy you are using, you can always take a different route.  There are many ways of skinning a cat as they say, hence consider talking to successful people for advice about how best to adjust your goals.

Personal goals instill good personal habits. They give you a sense of purpose, enthusiasm, confidence, satisfaction and help improve your self esteem.  They can bring a sense of happiness. Especially when you achieve them them and enhance your performance for the next set of goals you set.

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