Wednesday 4 January 2012

Goal Setting - The Major Categories for Goals

By Paul Stradford


Goal setting can be overwhelming and difficult for many people. We read stories about all the steps to make sure you are setting goals properly. If you find goal setting difficult then I want to give you a surefire three-step goal setting process.

Goal Setting in the Major Categories The key areas of your life that you should go about goal setting are subjective. Meaning, you wouldn't set business goals if you don't have a business to run. However, for most people, the key areas for goal setting are Health, Finance, Career, Family/Relationships, etc. The categories are up to you if, for example, you have spiritual or education goals, by all means add those categories.

Make a Plan Making the plan is the hard part of the goal setting process. You figured out what you wanted, but now can you design a plan to achieve your goal? Planning for a vacation is easier because usually the main part of the plan is figuring out how much the vacation will cost. Making a plan for your goals in life is a little more complicated. Hence, this is a reason many avoid setting goals in the first place. They are not sure exactly how to accomplish their goals.

Finance Goal Setting Most people's finance goals involve either a goal to get rid of a certain amount of debt, or to increase savings to a certain level. It's very important that you don't try to do both at the same time. Concentrate on one specific finance goal till you've completed it and then work on the next. For example, set a goal to create a $1500 emergency fund and focus completely on achieving it before you set another goal to eliminate $2000 in debt.

Career Goal Setting This category can also include small business goals. Be careful not to set goals in this category that are out of your control. Setting sales goals or goals to achieve a certain salary amount may lead to discouragement because you can't make people buy your product and you can't make your manager give you a raise. Your goals should be to talk to a certain number of prospects in a week or to bring one idea for a process improvement to your manager each week.

I am sure you have heard you need to take daily action on your goals. Now what does daily action really mean? I have found the action does not have to be massive, but it must be consistent. Think about your vacation to Disney World again. If you decided to drive and the total distance was 1,000 miles to Disney World would you stop after 300 miles? No, you would continue to drive each hour and day until you arrived to Disney World. To accomplish your goals you must continue to move forward.

No Giving Up If your goal is truly important to you, never give up. This world is filled with people who have settled for the life that they live. At one point they had a dream, vision, goal and aspiration but as soon as a roadblock appeared they gave up. You are capable of learning from hard times and making life better. If you want to grow a million dollar a year company, you can; but it will take time, hard work and some difficulties to overcome. The key is that you set incremental goals and never, ever give up.




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