Setting goals is an easy task to do. Even before you’re still a child, you tend to set your goals easily without even the intention to do so. One example is on how you wanted a certain toy and push yourself to earn few pennies just to get one. Although there’s an assistance of your parents, a part of you is still learning to identify what you want and to do necessary steps to attain it. As you grow old, your wants changes to your needs. That’s when the time you learn to set priorities which they commonly called “Adulting”.
Some people are so eager to reach their goals in a way that they really planned everything. From their daily routine, monthly targets, to do list etc., so that they can achieve whatever goals that they have. These people are considered a goal driven individual. They are the most willing person to sacrifice things for the sake of their goals thinking that there will be a right time for everything. Despite of having some people with the same kind of mindset, there are also some who choose to go with the flow. There are the one who lives their life in the fullest but at some point, losing the opportunities that are present for them. They don’t believe in plans and goals because they’re blinded with a constant happiness that they choose to stick with. Although it’s not really bad to live your life to the fullest, but what makes it wrong is when they start to go for their wants rather than their needs. This is pretty common in the age of 20’s and 30’s simply because they have the means to support whatever they want.
Now, why is it important to realize as early as possible the importance of setting goals?
Will it really provide something positive to that person who plan to have one?
How will they make it effective?
All the answers in these questions will be answered in this blog. For now, here below are the benefits of setting up a goal:
- It will serve as a guide and direction for you.
- It will provide a clear insight of plans you need to have in order to achieve it.
- A motivating factor to do your best effort in your everyday life.
- Can change unhealthy habits into a good one.
- Helps you to be more productive.
- A key for proper time management.
- Helps you to be more focus and goal driven person.
- Greatly helps in surpassing your own limitations.
- The thing that will push you to be the person you want to be.
- The one that can change your life for the better.
“Never quit. It is the easiest cop-out in the world. Set a goal and don’t quit until you attain it. When you do attain it, set another goal, and don’t quit until you reach it. Never quit.” –Bear Bryant
There’s no easy path to success. Challenges, mistakes and failures will always be present in one’s life. By means of having goals and plan in life, it will help you to lessen the negative impact of any challenges. As long as you have the will, dedication and trust, you will be a winner at the end of your journey. One thing that you just need to keep in mind is to see everything as a journey to your success. Whether it’s mistakes or failures, you need to consider it as an experience that will help you to grow. Every hour and minute count so choose to do something for your goals.
“You are the driver of your own life, learn to have the right mindset and your life will change.”
“Journey is more important than the goal itself.”
“Work on your plans right at this moment, not tomorrow or whatever excuses you have.”
The initial step for anyone to achieve something that they’d been hoping for so long is to categorize it. By means of this, you can plan out the goals that you can achieve within a month, a year and so on. By being more specific, it will help you to make an effective plans and strategies to achieve it. Other than that, as soon as you start categorizing it, you’ll feel more motivated to work on things that you can do in the present. This is like having your own business where you list down its mission and vision to arrive in your goals. You need to manage your thoughts and decision making in order to make this happen. One thing that will help you to be more efficient is to make a short-, medium- and long-term goals. Here below is the guide for you to plan it:
- Short Term Goals– Are goals that are attainable within a month or two.
Example: Fixing an old habit/Reading a book/Learning a new skill or sports/Achieving your monthly Budget/Start a workout routine etc.
- Medium Term Goals– Are goals that are attainable within a year or two.
Example: Promotion/Salary Increase/Travel Abroad/Making Small Investments/Getting an insurance etc.
- Long Term Goals– Are goals that are attainable at least five years or more.
Example: Professional Profession/ Big Investments/ Big Savings/ Own House/ Own Business/ Achieve retirement fund etc.
Other than this, you can go beyond it by breaking down your goals into more specific way, which are the following:
- Personal Goals. Are goals which entirely for your own self like achieving your ideal weight, choosing a healthy lifestyle, sticking to a daily routine, making your own healthy diet plans etc.
- Spiritual Goals. Are goals in line with strengthening your purpose and beliefs in life, like praying the holy rosary, reading the bible, going to church etc.
- Social Goals. Are goals that focuses in improving your connection to anyone like your family, friends, partner and every people around you.
- Career Goals. Are goals which focuses on your career growth like promotion, salary increase and moving into a new company.
- Financial Goals. Are goals which consist of all your financial targets such as retirement fund, Insurance and any investment opportunities.
Why do you need to do this?
You need to do this first step simply because it will help you to manage well your life. The more you start setting goals in a well-planned manner, the more it will be easy for you to do the next step after this. Oftentimes, goals are not achieved by people because of the wrong strategy that they put into it. They think that as long as they have it in mind even without having specific plans to attain it, all will be well. To avoid this same scenario to your goals, LIST IT DOWN AND CATEGORIZE IT! This is the initial start but the most important part in goal setting. The more you are serious in this, the more you will put your heart, mind and soul into it. You will learn to take everything seriously in a way that you set up goals like a real boss of a company. By doing this first step properly, it will be easy for you to organized your thoughts in the next step. Now, if you do the opposite, chances are you will fail in the planning process. Establishing a plan needs your 100% focus because it will rely here the steps that you need to do in order to achieve your goal.
If you don’t have any idea where to start, here’s a sample template that you can use so that you can easily sort out your goals:
If you have your own journal and you’d been writing your thoughts since before, it will be very easy for you to come up in a certain pattern for your own goals. It is proven effective that one’s you have a goal, it is best to write it down rather than just to keep it in your mind. This is because it will help you to set your mind on what you really want if you keep reading it every now and then. It will remind you on your goals and plans which will push you to do not waste any single time of your day.
In this next step, the one that you’ll focus on is entirely yourself. In setting goals, you also need to know your current capabilities in order to list down the goals by its priority. This is when you will know if a certain goal of yours is attainable within the category that you set. Like for example, if you plan to save up your emergency for two months but your existing income is perfectly fit only to your current financial obligations, then it will be hard for you to attain it within that period. You should identify your current status and capabilities first things first or else, your plans won’t be effective. To give you an idea on how you’ll successfully assess yourself, you can ask the following questions:
- What are my current obligations?
- What is my current status in terms of availability, finances & health?
- What are the things that I think I can achieve right now?
- What is my top priority for myself, career, family and finances?
- What are the most important aspects in my life that I need to improve?
In this part, you need to be very true to yourself since it will help you decide the right goals that you can do. The more you can lay out all the opportunities that you have and at the same time your status, the more you’ll find the right plan to reach those specific goals. Now, if you think that this is a waste of time, well you’re very wrong. Remember that in planning your goals, you need to assess first the things that will be involved. You cannot just decide right away without a right assessment because it will just compromise a lot of things. By doing this, you will have an insight on when you can do it, the timeline you can work on it and last but not the least is the tentative date that you can achieve that specific goal.
Once you successfully do this step, you can now be able to identify the following things:
- Specific Goals that are attainable as of the moment.
- Term goals that you can do given your current resources and time.
- A tentative plans and target in order to achieve that goal.
Remember that in every planning stage, it really requires an effort to do so. Every step should not be taken for granted or else it will end up as a failed plan. Remember that if you learn to put everything in making the right plan in achieving your goals, it will soon be a healthy habit that you can always apply in your future. Every step counts and you shouldn’t skip any of this thinking that it’s unnecessary. This is important just like the rest of steps in setting your goals. Once you successfully list down the things that this step requires, you can now go on to the third step!
“The only way to make a spoilt machine work again is to break it down, work on its inner system and fix it again. Screw out the bolts of your life, examine and work on yourself, fix your life again and get going.”― Israelmore Ayivor
Now that you successfully achieved the first and second step, the third step will help you now find how to make the suitable plans based on your goals. In this step, you need to consider all the things you list down in the first two steps, from your goals that you categorized and other things you considered in achieving it. For you to easily understand this, here below are the phases you need to undergo based in its attainability:
- Monthly Goals
- Make a weekly target.
- Once you have a target, make a suitable plan to achieve it considering your time, means, etc.
- In order to be more effective, make a to do list and set it as your priority of the day.
- Yearly Goals
- Make a monthly target.
- Once you have a target, make a suitable plan to achieve it considering all the aspects involve.
- Assess your targets quarterly/ semi-annually.
- Make a tracker of your progress.
- Long Term Goals
- Make a yearly target and break it down into monthly targets.
- Once you break it down, make a suitable plan to achieve it considering all the aspects involve.
- Assess your targets quarterly/ semi-annually/ annually.
- Make a tracker of your progress.
As you can see in the above, the effective planning is to break down big goals into small one. By means of this, you can start doing something every single day out of those goals. That is how goals are different from dreams. Dreams are goals that considered unachievable since it seems like out of reality. With the use of break down and proper planning, it can turn to an attainable goal. Like for example, if your goal is to build a retirement fund of P1,000,000.00 within 10 years, the breakdown of this specific goal will be:
In this breakdown, it shows you all the details how that long term goal can become a monthly goal. By doing this method, it will help you to see how it became attainable. Oftentimes your mind is blinded with fear of losing, by this method you can set your mind that it is easy to do so.
To ensure that you’re making a progress every single day, having a daily routine is the most effective way to do so. It will serve as a guide that will help you to manage your day in a productive manner. This may sound awkward because only few really wanted to plan their day, but for the sake of achieving your goal, you should consider making one! Just think of it, now that you successfully done the first three steps, there’s no more chance to give up. Choose to continue this step and one thing for sure is your efforts won’t be put into waste. Now, in making your own daily routine, the factors you need to consider are your time, priority and existing lifestyle.
Why should you consider making one?
- It will help you to become more productive.
- You can achieve your targets by means of giving a specific time for you to work for it.
- It will push you to be more discipline.
- It helps you to manage your time efficiently.
- You can easily finish your task on hand.
- It promotes healthy habits and can eliminate the bad ones.
- It helps to create more productive and healthy routine.
Now that you are decided to have your very own daily routine, here below are the things that you must have in order for it to be effective:
- Prepare a sheet/template that you can list down things that you must do in a day, your priority task and micro plans in line with your goals for the month/year etc.
- Ideal time to wake up
- Work Hours
- Others (traveling from and to your work place)
- Your priorities/Task for the day
- Household Chores
- Workout
- Self-Care Time
- Leisure Time
- Ideal time to sleep
- Plan your day according to your availability. If you are an employee, chances are you have limited time to do all of those. Now, the strategy is to make a specific routine in a specific day to cover all of the things stated above.
- MWF (Routine 1), TTHS (Routine 2) and Week end is Leisure Day
- Designate your own Lazy Day which you really do nothing. This is to compensate your long days of being productive. By having this, your mind and body will feel at ease without expecting any task to do for the day.
- Once you are ready to list down your routine, start to structure your day considering all your existing routine and your priorities. Always keep in mind that it is important to have some time for yourself whether it’s yoga, workout, meditation etc.
- In making a list, it is proven effective that you have a print out of it where you can always read it as soon as you wake up in the morning. This will help you to remind yourself the task and priorities you have for the day.
Having a feedback and assessment of your goals is one of the key motivators for you to do your best. As long as you know the current status that you’re in, it will help you to improve your focus on whatever you set for yourself. You can compare this as your very own validation of your work. Oftentimes, people seek validation to the people around them in every effort they do. Here, you will learn to validate all of your work on your own. Isn’t it fantastic to learn how to appreciate your own efforts? By means of assessing every single goal that you have, you’ll eventually learn that validation doesn’t always come to the external environment but can be easily done internally. You can also expect it on your own!
To effectively assess your goals, here are some things that you can do for yourself:
- Tracker. A tracker is a list of your goals together with its status. You can have a monthly tracker of your goals (Personal, Health, Career, Financial, Social etc.) where you can put your daily progress to it.
Here’s a sample template that can help you to track your progress.
- Monthly Goals Recap. This is the overall summary and analysis of your progress. By having this, you can determine the points where you need to focus on for the next month. It also provides you necessary insights on how you achieve/fail a certain task which will help you to do better in the future.
Here’s a sample template that can help you to summarize your progress.
- Monthly Plans. Once you have the review and proper assessment of your goals, it is now easy to plan what your next step will be. All of this will help you derive in the right steps and strategy.
Why do you need to assess your goals?
Every step-in setting goal is very important, same with this one. If you have plans but failed to assess and review your efforts, you will be unsuccessful eventually. Why? Simply because you don’t know where your current status in that may results to unorganized plans. Planning is not always at the beginning; it may change through time depending on your current progress. That’s why, it is so important to properly assess your goals because it will determine your new plans. This may look like as an added job, but once you get used to this, it will surely become a healthy habit.
After assessing your goals, it is also important to at least celebrate your success. Whether it’s small nor big one, you deserve to be happy and be granted by the things that makes you happy. Stop limiting yourself on things that you know you deserve. A simple token of happiness is more than enough to compensate all the efforts and sacrifices you put into. You don’t need to feel bad about it, because this is one of the effective ways for you to feel more inspired in achieving your goals. It will help you to be more motivated in your daily life, see things in a positive manner and at the same time avoid procrastination.
You don’t need to seek approval just to celebrate your own success. Do it for yourself without anyone’s support. This is how you become stronger and motivated individual. By doing this as well, you will learn to practice self-love. You will see how small celebration can affect all aspects of your life in a positive way. If you don’t have any idea how to celebrate, you don’t need to do such big things! You can simply do the following:
- Treat yourself with your favorite food.
- Hang out alone in a place where you so still didn’t visit.
- Surprise yourself with a gift.
- Write it down in your journal so you can always remember it.
- Treat yourself with a self-care regime (Spa, Hair Salon etc.)
- Dress up and order your favorite food!
- Have a cup of coffee while listening to your favorite playlist.
- Pray and give thanks!
- Do something that you enjoy (Dancing, Singing, Movie Marathon, games etc.)
In this list above, you can see how simple it is to celebrate. You don’t need to have that glamorous parties that you’re expecting to do. As long as you feel that sense of accomplishment and happiness in that certain activity, it will be more than enough.
To end this step in Goal Setting, one thing that you need to do is to repeat the process over and over again. Don’t just be active in the beginning but choose to be consistent. This is the only way for you to develop good habits. You already succeeded doing the first six steps, and in this last step it will all depends on your choice.
Will you choose to give up?
Or
Will you choose to continue what you started?
You already done a pretty good job so don’t just let it vanish just because you feel tired. Always remember that time is limited. Don’t waste it on things that you will eventually regret. Make memories that you will surely remember for the rest of your life. Become a goal driven person and once the times comes you already succeed, be an inspiration and pull someone else up. A true successful person genuinely wanted to let others be successful. That’s the true meaning of success and choose to be one.
Setting goals is one of the vital things that will determine your future? How? Because it will give you a direction which you will learn to be a better version of yourself. The constant planning and making targets will provide you an access to the life that you’re dreaming of. With the right approach and method, you will surely come out successful.
The path won’t be flowery. There will be challenges along the way that’s why it is very important to have the right and clear mindset of your path. The more you appreciate the journey you’ll go through, the more you will be grateful on whatever outcome it will be.
So, to you who continuously hoping for your goals to achieve, these simple tips will greatly help you. By following this, it will serve as a guide for you to do something productive in your present. Remember that there’s no such thing as limitation on who you want to be. Your age, current circumstances, status in life and many more other things are just excuses. Go beyond it and prove to yourself that you are more than what you expect to be!
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