Why Setting Goals Is Important In Life

Goal setting is an essential factor towards living your life yielding strong rewards in all aspects of your life. Goal setting allows you to have a choice where and how far you want to go in life.

It also gives you the guide of which part of your life is merely a distraction to your long-range plans. It concentrates your accumulated knowledge and helps you organize your available resources.

Goal setting is evident among professionals, as they strive to achieve success in their professions. They work full-time and yet still manage to have fun with their family; They extend their hands for community service and yet still manage to have some time to do their hobbies.

Their secret lies not in controlling time but in managing time. Time management. This is the essence of goal setting.

The importance of goal setting, however, is not limited to professionals. Every successful individual has understood and acknowledged the importance of goal setting. Athletes, doctors, lawyers, etc. have used goal-setting in one way or the other.

Below are critical steps that are important in setting and achieving your goals.

Benefits of  Goal Setting

By goal setting you will be able to:

– achieve, sometimes even more than your initial goal

– improve the quality of your performance

– increase your self-motivation to achieve

– increase your satisfaction in the work you have done

– improve your self-confidence and self-esteem

– plan to eliminate attitudes that cause distractions (e.g. the ones that hold you back causing unhappiness)

How to start goal setting?

The first step in setting your goals is to put into careful consideration of what you want to achieve in your entire lifetime. Your lifetime goals will give all of your actions and decisions in the right direction. It shapes all other aspects of your every decision making.

Since this is about your lifetime goals, you may well be looking at a broad horizon. Here are some important areas in your life that need consideration:

– career and finances
– education
– family
– art and sports
– physical and attitude
– entertainment and pleasure (travel, etc.)
– social and public service

After carefully choosing what you want to achieve in every category, make a priority list that will number these categories from 1 to 7. You may even add more aspects to the list if needed. Remember that this is your smart goal setting list, it should fit your needs – not your parents, peers, family, or people around you. It is for you – not anyone else’s.

Check to see if all is in place. A careful review is important – this will ensure that all is in place the way you want them to be. Review your plans every now and then to make sure this is what you really want and that you are doing everything right. If modifications and reworking are necessary, then by all means do so.

From hereon, base your every decision on your goals. You can make a daily list of things you are going to do that will help you reach your goals. Simple things like reading a book and gathering of information on what you want to do in the future will help you get started and maintain this throughout the entire process.

The right attitude for  goal setting

One important thing in smart goal setting is self-discipline. This will help you carry through your dreams and vision in life despite the problems and hassles that may arise. If self-discipline is present, goal setting is also relatively easy because of your positive attitude towards your effective guidelines will help you rather than hold you back.

Researches and surveys have shown that people who set their goals in life effectively suffer less from stress and have fewer tendencies to have anxiety attacks.

They also learn to concentrate and performance better. They show more self-confidence and are more at peace with themselves making them happier and satisfied people. Be one of them now, start your goal setting plan today.

Goal Setting is a Map

Identify an area of your life where you want advancement. Then work through the goal process that follows. Here are the steps needed to make a map.

A. Identify the exact goal

What you really want in life? What is your purpose and your objective? You must ask yourself these questions to have a concrete idea of what you want in life.

Time, however, can change the way we look at things. One day you may want to be a published romance novelist after five years, the next day you may want to be a watercolor painter with mother and child as inspiration. When this change of heart happens, don’t despair.

There’s no wrong with changing a goal for another goal. This is part of life. Change, that is. But having an objective, an exact goal at present will give you an idea of what you want. Changing that goal along the way, as you traveled to reach your goal, is just one of the events that you’ll encounter along the way.

B. Identify the completion Date

Goals should have a period of completion. It is not a goal if it doesn’t have a specific time of completion; it would be a dream. A daydream, that is.

Goals are concrete and realistic aspirations. It isn’t a goal when you say, “I want to be a novelist within my lifetime.” It is a dream. A goal must be put this way, “I want to be a published romance novelist before I reach 35.”

This gives you a period to push your pens and write down that publishable novel. It hurries you to reach your goal. It motivates you to beat time, have a published novel ahead of time you’ve set for yourself.

C. Identify the evolution of the Goal

Change is inevitable. And it applies even to goals.

Goals may evolve into something, maybe even far better than your earlier goals. If earlier you want to be a published romance novelist before you reach the age of 35, it may evolve into something like a published Young Adult novelist before you reach the age of 35, and have written a script for a video game.

Goal Setting Is Your Vision

When you set a goal, you are actually seeing a vision, a vision of yourself in the near future. Imagine if you accomplished the goal you have set after five years, it was as if you have predicted what you will become five-year-ago!

Having a vision not only makes you feel contented with yourself, it also pushes you to look ahead and go forward instead of living in the past.

Image courtesy of marcolm at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Image courtesy of maya picture at FreeDigitalPhotos.net