No matter who you are or what your background is, setting goals is an important part of self-improvement. Goals give you direction, help you develop your priorities, and can spark a fire in your life that might have otherwise never been lit.
The Importance of Setting Goals
“Without a clear target, you’ll never hit your mark.”
-Tony Robbins
Setting goals are vital because they help you decide and focus on what’s really important to you. If you don’t know what you want to accomplish, you can’t create a plan to get there. Setting goals is the equivalent of picking which path to follow to reach your desired destination.
Setting goals lets us create our future. It also helps us to grow and expand, pushing ourselves to transform in ways that we never imagined. To feel truly fulfilled, we need to know and feel like we’re working to achieve something, and setting goals is what gets us there.
We must decide what is beneficial to our own welfare and set goals to achieve it. Through the experience of achieving our goals and the positive emotions accompanying them, confidence and belief in our abilities grow.
Different ways to set goals
Following are three different ways you can set goals. They are not mutually exclusive. The important thing is to find a way that works for you and provides you with a clear picture of the end point you wish to achieve.
1. Methodical, Systems Approach
- Perform a brainstorming session. Give yourself six minutes to brainstorm a list of anything you’d like to achieve, create, do, have, give and/or experience in the next 20 years. Write as many things down as fast as you can in this time.
- Refine your goals. Setting deadlines is crucial to the goal-setting process. Go back through your list and write one, three, five, 10, or 20 years next to each goal to indicate how long it will take to achieve them.
- Review your list. Go over what you’ve written. Choose your top four one-year goals. These are goals that genuinely excite you. Write a paragraph for each goal explaining why you will absolutely achieve this goal within the next 12 months.
- Evaluate your goals. Are your goals specific? Measurable? Achievable? Realistic? Do they have a particular timeframe? Set your SMART (Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) goals with purpose and intention, making them more concrete and easier to achieve
2. Imagining your goals
In this second method, you will create a clear picture in your mind of your ideal life through creative visualisation. It is essential, however, to ensure that you make sufficient time for this exercise and create a quiet space for you to do this properly.
Once you are settled and have found a quiet time and place to do this exercise, begin by taking a couple of deep breaths to relax. Check your body – how relaxed does it feel? If you don’t know, start at the top of your head, gently tense, and relax each part of your body until you reach your feet. This helps show you the difference between being deliberately tense and relaxed when you let go of the tension.
Give yourself plenty of time to get a clear picture of the future that you want to create for yourself. Bring all your senses into play to fully imagine yourself living your ideal life. Once you have achieved this, seek to answer the following questions:
- Where are you?
- Who are you with?
- What do you see yourself doing?
- What can you hear around you?
- How are you feeling?
- Are there any smells or tastes?
- Where do you work/live?
- How do you spend your free time?
Then write down what you have visualised. This will help to consolidate it in your mind, and give you something to refer to (or add to) in the future to remind you of what you are seeking to achieve through all your hard work.
3. Using pictures and words to capture you goal
Another way to get a clear idea of what you want, might be hearing yourself describe it.
There are also magazines, Instagram and articles that cover just about every aspect of life that can inspire you. Try storyboards, using visualisations to cut out pictures and produce a collage of your ideal life.
Working with pictures and words engages the creativity of the right side of your brain. It gives you access to the immense power of your subconscious mind, finding fulfillment, freedom, quality time with loved ones, and a sense of well-being. By doing this you will be able to define what you want.
Writing your personal definition of success
Once you have identified and drawn out the detail of the life you would like to live, you can begin to work on how to close that gap. From there you can break this vision into steps to move towards this goal. If you aren’t sure, just focus on identifying one step, the first goal, for you to start moving towards your future life. I encourage you to write down your personal definition of success.
For many, that may not include fame or extreme wealth. It may include things like having a sense of purpose, contributing to those around you, being valued, having a loving family, and keeping healthy.
Life success is more than money and a career.
The costs of goals
Achieving a goal requires commitment and a willingness to make achieving the goal a priority in your life. As our time is not infinite, that means something else (or more than one thing) will need to receive less of your attention while you focus on the selected goal. Being committed to achieving your goal WILL change how you live your life, and the choices you make on how to spend your time.
Everybody wants a gold medal, but few people want to train like Olympians. You need to stay focus on what you want, and keep making the choices that will support your success.
A significant step to achieving your goals is accepting upfront what you must sacrifice and still committing yourself to achieve that goal regardless.
The Importance of Setting Goals
“Are you willing to commit to reducing your free time and hard work that comes before the exciting and glamorous outcome?”
Final thoughts
You’re much more likely to put time and energy into something that excites you, so your goals must reflect that same level of momentum. Think of a goal as a dream with a deadline.
Setting goals is the first step towards planning for the future, and they play a fundamental role in developing skills needed for us to succeed in life. They are the target at which we aim our proverbial arrow.
In the words of Pablo Picasso:
Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success.
Setting goals puts you in the right direction, but now you need to develop your plan on how you will achieve it. Access our Setting Goals package to help you achieve success.
Author Bio
Deborah Knight is the founder of Xsead Lead with a background in organisational and individual leadership and executive coaching.
As a coach, Deborah aims to create an inclusive and respectful space where individuals and organisations can do the work necessary for growth and change. She is also passionate about helping women be valued for themselves while also contributing and being successful.
Apart from her company which she is deeply passionate about, Deborah also loves bushwalking, reading, travelling, and learning new things.
For any coaching or organisational support enquiries Deborah can be contacted via email: info@xseedlead.com.au or via her company website which is www.xseedlead.com.au.
