Setting Life Goals: The Key to Achievement

© Rosamunde Bott 2008

In his last song, George Harrison wrote: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there”. 

In other words, if you don’t have a clear idea of what you’re aiming for, you could end up anywhere.   Setting life goals is essential if you have dreams for your life.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said this:  “The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.”

All this goes to say that you have far more chance of achieving your life dreams if you set clear goals

So, what makes a clear goal?  Here are my tips for setting achievable goals:

1.  First of all, you need to know exactly what you want.  A vague idea doesn’t have any power.  Write down exactly what you want.  For example: I want a new, silver Mitsubishi Colt CZC is much better than “I want a new car”.  Have fun choosing what you want.

2. Once you have decided what it is you want or to achieve, make sure you have a clear vision. See it, feel it, hear it, taste it (where appropriate!) Imagine sitting behind the wheel of your new car, smelling the leather and hearing the engine revs.  Feel the wind in your hair as you drive with the top down. 

3. Make your goal measurable. How will you know you have achieved it?  In this case, owning a new car is easy – you’ll know you’ve achieved it when you’re driving your car!  However, if your goal is to make your business successful, this is not quite so easy to measure.  You need to know exactly what YOU mean by successful.  How many clients will you have?  How much money will you be making?  Get really specific with this.  The reason this is important is because you need to know exactly what you are aiming for.  This is also more motivating because you have something definite to work towards. 

4. Make sure that your goal is achievable and realistic. If you have not achieved goals in the past is this because they were too big to achieve within a given timescale, or are outside of your capabilities right now? There’s nothing wrong with setting big goals (I’m all for it!) but sometimes it is better to start with smaller goals, or milestones, that you know you can achieve. When you start reaching these goals, you will feel more confident to follow a slightly bigger goal, and so on...

5. Next, decide when you want to have achieved your goal. If you don’t do this you will not be motivated to take the necessary action.  Goals starting with “Some day I’ll….” just don’t work because “some day” never comes!  Real dates do.  Some people don’t like to do this because they are worried about committing to a certain date.  However, the point is to get you working at your goal.  If you don’t hit the date quite on time this does not matter as long as you are getting there – and you’ll be getting there a lot quicker than if you don’t set a date.

6. Decide how you will reward yourself when you achieve your goal. Pausing to give ourselves a pat on the back is an important step that is very often left out.  Acknowledging yourself in this way will give you a confidence boost and acts as a life “milestone” before you set off on the next goal.

7. Write down all the steps you must take to reach your goal and work out when you need to do them – put these in your diary, calendar or to-do list – and then keep to them!

8.  Make a written statement to include all of the above.  This is best put into the present tense to make it real.  For example:  “By 1^st October 2008, I am earning £50,000 per year with my business and am able to buy the period country house.  My reward is taking a holiday in a 5 star hotel in the South of France.”  You should be smiling by the time you’ve written this!

Once you have done all this, the next thing to do is take action!  Read your goal statement every day and do the steps you have written down.

Remember, this doesn’t have to be written in blood.  You might want to change it as you go along.  Priorities change, things happen – so don’t beat yourself up if you have to adjust now and then – as long as you are moving in the right direction every day.

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