Today’s topic for our goal series is How to Prioritize Your Goals. In order to prioritize your goals, you’ll need to have a good understanding of what you need to be happy in your life.
The Four Areas of Goal Setting
Below are the typical four areas in which most people make goals:
1. Family – Spending more time with your kids or partner 2. Financial – Saving toward your six-month emergency cash or starting a business 3. Physical – Being healthy and more active 4. Personal – Getting more education, or devoting more time to spiritual pursuits
Where Will YOU Focus?
Within each of these areas are numerous concerns, but most goals can be summed up into one of these four areas. As to which goals are most important at any given time, you’ll need to ask yourself some questions to determine where to place your focus.
Which goals nag at you most often?
– What keeps you up at night that worries you? Are your finances suffering because you cannot earn enough money at your current job? You’d like to figure out how to get off the debt treadmill? This is a goal that fits in with all four of the areas. Financial stress can cause a lot of problems with your health. And even your personal development as well as cause problems within the family.
Which goals can be accomplished most easily?
– Some goals are very short-term but give maximum impact without too much work. For instance, maybe you have a goal of walking 15 minutes per day. This goal may only fit in with the personal and physical areas above, but walking 15 minutes per day will not take much away from the other areas. This can give you huge results and a feeling of accomplishment.
Compile A List Of The Most Critical
Which goals would give you the most pride in yourself?
– Will you feel better if you lose 20 pounds or will you feel better if you spend 20 minutes extra with your son? Keep in mind there is no wrong answer, although being healthy might ultimately give you more time in terms of years with your son.
Which goals have the most permanent results?
– When choosing whether to spend that extra money on your degree, determine how permanent the results will be. Realize that no one can take that degree from you; it will always be an accomplishment. What is it worth?
Estimate What Is Important
Which goals will still impact me in 5 years, or 10 years?
– If you start a business today, and work daily toward meeting the goals of that business, what will be different in five or ten years? How will that impact you now and in the future?
Which goals align with your core values in life?
– Any goal that fits into all four areas of your life is worth pursuing if it also fits into your schedule at the time.
What Goals You Control
Which goals are completely up to you, that you control 100 percent?
– Remember that you cannot control what anyone else does. So if any goal relies on the participation of someone else, and you don’t have their participation, you might want to switch gears and focus on something only you control.
Which goals are just for you?
– Some goals are completely personal in nature and have nothing to do with anyone else. For instance, you might want to read a particular author that has nothing to do with anything but your own pleasure. This is totally alright.
Which goals are just for others?
– There are “shoulds” that often get in the way of proper goal setting and these are goals that are only for other people. Your spouse wants you to lose weight, your mom wants you to go to college, your best friend wants you to start a business. None of these are a good reason to do something, although as long as you know going in why it’s okay to make it a goal.
Are Your Goals Rational?
Which goals cause you the most fear? Why?
– Sometimes the very thing you fear most is what’s best for you to do. Look clearly at your goal and figure out why it frightens you. Sometimes it’s the unknown, and like ripping off a Band-Aid, just doing it might be the best cure.
Which goals make you excited?
– Some goals immediately send tingles down your body and into your mind, pushing you forward to doing it. These are goals that are easy to do and probably impact your life a lot. However, do pay attention because if it’s a goal of becoming the high scorer on a video game you might want to question your “why”.
Which goals are most realistic?
– The best goals to put first are the goals that best fit into your life today, cover all four areas of life, and still fit into your schedule and where you control 100 percent of the effort.
When you answer all these questions, you’ll be able to see how the goals practically organize themselves.
Try making a spreadsheet and adding each goal to the four areas, then choosing the ones that cross the most areas to add to your schedule first.
One of the biggest mistakes people make when seeking to achieve a goal is to wait for inspiration and motivation. Today’s topic of discussion on our series on goals is all about How to Find Motivation to Achieve Your Goals. Imagine if everyone on this planet was waiting for motivation to get work done.
Productivity would drop to nothing, and our economy would collapse. Since productivity has improved over the years, it’s not likely that it has anything to do with real motivation. People are still doing the things they have to do in order to achieve a goal. Aren’t you?
Goals or Motivation?
Sometimes their goals might be set by them or their employer. It doesn’t matter who set it – it’s set, and someone is going to get it done. Am I right? How sad that in some cases people fail at so many things simply by ignoring the fact that motivation isn’t really necessary; only doing is.
They sit around waiting for inspiration to come wondering why everyone else is doing better than them. They’re waiting for some spark of motivation that will never arrive.
You can avoid this issue by realizing the truth.
Motivation Doesn’t Exist But What’s the Intention?
You probably have heard of the myth of the starving artist who can’t paint or the writer with writer’s block. It’s interesting that these creative professions have the same myth. Like weight loss, that some secret motivation has to come to achieve success. Some mysterious spark of inspiration that will get you off your bottom doing what you need to get done. If How to Find Motivation to Achieve Your Goals isn’t possible, then why should you even try?
However, nothing could be further from the truth.
Doing, Not Thinking, Gets You Real Results
Time and again, the people who are truly successful in their own lifetimes, are not people who wait for a spark. They are people who get up out of bed every single day, rain or shine and do things that lead to an end result of success. The successful painter paints every single day and if they hate marketing they hire someone to do that for them.
The successful writer writes; the successful doctor – doctors. If you want to be successful at something, do it. Live it. You will succeed. How to Find Motivation to Achieve Your Goals is basically up to you!
Many people get blocked by thinking that someone is better than, smarter than, or any “than” than them. The truth is, successful people aren’t smarter. Take a look at the most famous actresses that you know. Without exception, they are simply people who do their craft every single day. More times than not, they are simply being themselves in front of the camera. They are doing it, not thinking about doing it, and not dreaming of doing it. They go to auditions, get rejected, and then get up the next day and do it again.
Learn about the acronym S.M.A.R.T which stands for “specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and timely”. Every goal you set should meet that standard. After all, if you cannot be specific enough about what you want so that it can be measured, what is it really? You need to act on it in a realistic manner in a specific time frame. If you can’t it’s not really a goal. It’s a dream – perhaps a pipe dream!
Targets For Your Success
Envision Success
Some people think vision boards are a bunch of hocus pocus. But the truth is, being able to truly visualize yourself experiencing success will go far in helping you actually create success in your life. There are people who are good at seeing it in their mind and believing it, but others need more. Try making a vision board to see your dream down on paper so that you can then decide how to make your S.M.A.R.T. goals.
Follow a Schedule
It can’t be stated enough. Doers do. Successful people do. A “to-do” list isn’t going to cut it; you’re going to need to make a schedule and stick to it. If you want to write a 10,000 word eBook to sell to your target audience, you need to start at the endpoint. Then work your way back to today making a schedule that is realistic. You do this so you can follow it to get the work done when you said you wanted it done. Then let nothing stop you.
Experience Success
Set some smaller goals so that you can feel what success is like. If you’ve never once stuck to anything, you can’t know what success feels like and you have nothing to push you forward. People who experience success like to experience it again. The more success you experience, the more you’re going to realize that you can. It’s self-fulfilling.
Repeat Everything, That’s The Objective
Finally, keep doing it over and over again. With anything, you want to achieve, set the goal, track your success, and do something every single day toward achieving that goal. Again and again. It’s really that simple.
Motivation is a figment of the imagination, and not something that most people have. Most people get up in the morning by hitting the snooze button a few times, and most people do not feel especially happy about doing certain things. What they feel happy about is the end result, the deliverable.
Place your focus there and you will not need any motivation because you will be successful.
If you are looking for help with YOUR motivation, I offer 1×1 mentoring sessions that would help you kick your butt into action. Use this link to schedule a call, I would love to help you figure it out.
In order to set powerful goals that are achievable, take some time to research the dreams you have to find out if they’re even doable. You want to challenge yourself some but don’t make the goals so hard that you experience failure. Continuing with our Goal Series today’s topic is on how to set powerful goals you can achieve.
Goal Criteria
To ensure maximum success, make sure that your goals meet the following criteria:
Match Your Core Values
The more any goal fits into one of the four main areas of life – Family, Financial, Physical, or Personal – the more likely you are to be able to set a realistic goal that you can achieve. If a goal for some reason doesn’t fit into one of your core values, it’s not likely you’ll experience much success.
Be 100 Percent in Control
While goals that rely on others aren’t wrong, they are harder to achieve. Any goal that you control 100 percent is a goal that you can reach. Do ensure that you’re not letting fear get in your way or blaming fate for your failures, though. Self-limiting beliefs can get in your way on this one. Be realistic about whether you have control or not and give yourself more credit. For example, if you think you don’t have control over your financial future because “that’s just how it is,” you are mistaken. You need to eliminate this line of thinking.
Be Able to Envision the Goal
If you can’t see the end result, it will be very difficult to move forward toward achieving the goal. If you need to draw a picture, make a vision board, or take a day off to fantasize, just do it.
You need to see how it will all fit together in the big picture of your life. You need to see the end to be able to truly achieve it.
Every goal you make needs to be very specific in nature. If you really want to be sure to reach the goal, you have to know when you reached it. Instead of saying “I want to start a business,” state exactly what type of business you want to start. Who will be your clients? There is other information that makes the goal more concrete.
2) Be Measurable
At what point have you achieved the goal? If you can’t give a number or something that is measurable, then you won’t have a real goal. Let’s use the business example above. You might include that you want to earn x amount of dollars each week by a certain date. And then how and why you are going to do it.
3) Be Actionable
To achieve any goal there have to be steps that you can take to get there. Like using a map to reach a destination that you want to go to on vacation. You need to draw a map to your vision of success with the steps and paths you’ll take along the way. Put not only what but when, and how you’ll accomplish the step.
4) Be Realistic
You don’t want to write a goal that is too hard to achieve or worse, impossible. Be sure that it’s scientifically possible to do it by researching everything realistically. For example, you’re not likely going to start a business today and earn six figures by tomorrow or even the first year in business. Look at the research and determine what is doable and how you’ll do it.
5) Be Timely
Every goal has to have a time limit otherwise you may never achieve it. Start with the end and work your way back to today. By creating a list of things to do each day, you’ll be able to finally reach the end result. But, do set a time limit. You can adjust as you get into the project if it works to be more realistic. But resist the urge to change the time because you’re not sticking to your task lists. This right here is powerful!
In Conclusion
If you use this method to create powerful goals that you can achieve, you will not experience a lot of failures. You can always adjust your timeline and your goals as you learn more. The important thing is to give each goal a lot of thought, consideration, and study before setting it.
I hope you’re enjoying this series on goal setting. Today’s article on How to Set Powerful Goals You Can Achieve is just one of the many articles in this series.
There is a lot more to goal setting than just picking a goal and moving forward. While that is important, it’s also important to ensure that you are setting the right goals at the right time so that you can truly be successful. In order to ensure that you are setting the right goals for your business, answer the following questions:
Are You Setting Specific and Realistic Goals?
It takes a little research to ensure that a goal is realistic. If you’re not sure if something is actually achievable then you’ve not done enough research. Once you’ve set a goal that is indeed realistic, then you need to be specific enough in your description of it so that it’s also easy. Take the goal and work backward to create a schedule of actions needed to succeed.
Are Your Goals Multifaceted?
Focusing on only one part of your business/life is a bad idea. People live multifaceted lives and need to make goals for all areas of their lives in order to feel successful. If you have a wonderful business but your personal life suffers, then no matter how successful you are, you will not feel successful. Something will always feel as if it’s missing from your life if your goals aren’t inclusive. Therefore, make sure your goals include something from each aspect of your life. Are you setting the right goals for your business?
Scheduling Your Goals
Is Your Scheduling Representative of Real Need?
Once you create the schedule for yourself to reach each goal that you’ve set, you need to truly consider how representative it is of reality. Say your goal is to be healthy and reduce your cholesterol by 10 percent in six months. But, you haven’t set aside the time needed to exercise and eat right. If you don’t schedule the time needed, you won’t succeed because something will always be in your way taking time away from you. It will be very frustrating to practice your schedule because it doesn’t represent reality.
Use your calendar to block out time for each activity. For instance, if you are going to exercise 30 minutes per day, setting aside only 30 minutes isn’t going to be realistic. You’ll probably need to set aside an hour to account for getting ready as well as cooling down or getting cleaned up to go back to work.
Are You Learning from Failure?
Many times when setting goals and creating schedules, instead of learning from failure, people give up. Using the example above, once you implement your schedule to reach the goals that you have set if there are things you’ve forgotten to take into account, don’t give up. Learn from the failure and change the schedule to be more realistic.
You might find that in practice you have to rewrite all your goals and your schedule, but this is perfectly acceptable. Many people believe failure is something negative. The truth is, if you don’t fail sometimes you’re not going to learn much and it’s likely your goals are too easy.
Needs, Wants, Yours, or Someone Else
Do Your Goals Represent Your Needs and Wants or Someone Else’s?
A lot of people set goals that represent what someone else wants instead of what they want. This can really cause a lot of bad feelings and resentment. This can derail the best-laid plans. As you set your goals for your life, ask yourself if they’re really what you want for yourself or what someone else wants for you. Ask yourself if you’re okay with any goal you make for someone else before you embark on your journey.
It’s okay to do things because of someone else, but it’s important that you are honest about that and make some goals for yourself too that don’t involve anyone else’s needs or wants.
Are You Checking in Often to Stay on Track?
Schedules are very important to the success of reaching any goal in life. To-do lists pale in comparison to a well-laid out plan of tasks and activities that get you from point “A” to point “B”. Ensure that you look at your schedule or calendar every morning and every night. Note when you succeed in sticking to your schedule and where you don’t. Noticing a pattern of activity can be helpful in fixing a poorly written schedule as well as staying realistic about whether or not you’re sticking to the plan.
Being Positive And Intentional
Are Your Goals Focused Positively?
When writing a goal, it’s important to write them in a positive way. Or at least in a way that feels positive to you. In the quest to improve your life, try doing this. Write down a goal and then change the words to sound more positive to see if it isn’t more motivating. For instance, “losing weight” seems like a good goal, but for some people, it might signify deprivation. So instead, the person might frame the goal as “improving my BMI by 10 points” or “improving my cholesterol by 10 percent.”
Do You Have Too Many Goals Set at One Time?
Just as setting too few goals can be a problem, so can setting too many. Everyone has a personal life and a business life and points in between. If you have set goals in too many areas of life at once, you might tire yourself out and get overwhelmed. Instead, pick one personal goal, and one other type of goal to focus on. After you reach them, then you can add more goals as time goes on. You don’t need to do everything today. Slow and steady wins the race is a good motto to hang on to.
Setting the right goals for yourself takes some thought and consideration. Don’t try to set all your goals in one day. Instead, set some goals in different stages and in different areas of your life. Give a lot of thought to why you’re making the goal in the first place. It will save you a ton of headaches this way, don’t you think? Are You Setting the Right Goals for Your Business?
If you need assistance with setting your goals, I can help you. Contact me to schedule an appointment. You can use this link -> FREE CALL
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