Get Your Goals in 6 Easy Steps

Learning how to set goals can help give you direction and motivation, allowing you to work systematically and progressively toward an end result. It helps to focus your attention, linking knowledge and desire to purpose and action. Goals help to give you a perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.

 Goal setting is also an essential part of time-planning, enabling you to set priorities and use your time in the best possible way. It helps you determine what you want to achieve and how to best spend the time you have to achieve it. Following are the six easy steps to effective goal setting. This article will focus on how goal setting can improve your health, but you can apply this goal setting principles to your finances, relationship, spiritual development or career.

1. Start with a long term goal. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts. Long-term goals are vital to your success because they provide direction, motivation and focus. You can have the desire, but without the specific target to aim for, you can easily miss the mark. Achieving these types of goals is a reward in itself. The more important is this goal is to you, the greater your chances of success will be.


2. Set some short-term goals. Short-term are like stepping stones to help you reach your destination. These are the specific actions, steps behavior, skills and thinking processes you will need for your outcome to eventuate.


3. Reward yourself. An important part of the goal setting process is to celebrate your achievements and reward your successes. Your long-term goal should be a reward in itself, but give yourself an incentive for adopting new lifestyle changes and achieving your short-term goals. Knowing there is a reward to be gained reinforces your healthy behavior and helps to drive you toward taking action. You can choose to reward yourself however it makes you feel good.


4. Write your goals. Writing your goals is a valuable part of the goal setting process. A visual reminder helps to focus your attention on the things that matter.


5. Act on your plan. Your words, thoughts, goals, plans and intentions are all important, but at some point you need to take action. Goals don’t mean a thing unless you act upon them. Action is the key that gets you started, and your daily actions will ultimately determine whether you reach your goal. Once you get started success will breed success, and you will begin to generate some momentum. Habits are developed through consistency and regular practice.


6. Re-evaluate your goals. While there are many benefits to focusing on the process, not the results, there will come a point when you have to see if the process is actually working. After a set period of time, check to see how you are progressing. Once you have revisited or reassessed your goals, go back to the first step and start again. You will only know what you can achieve if you set goals and take action.

Andrew Cate is an author and Online Personal Trainer. Read more of his articles at www.andrewcate.com.