“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” – Henry Ford
Everyone has dreams. What are yours?
More importantly what are you doing to turn these “dreams” into reality?
If you aren’t setting goals towards achieving this dream you need to start now! Goal setting is crucial to achieving success for the main reason being that it gives you focus, it gives you a purpose and when things get hard or you feel like you want to give up, it gives you your “why”. Last night I was cleaning out some old paper work (yep, the physical type where I wrote with a pen and paper haha!) and I came across a list of goals I wrote exactly (well within a few weeks) a year ago from today! It was amazing to see that out of the 8 goals I had written on my note pad (with an expiration date of when I wanted to have ticked them off), 6 had been 100% completed and 2 were in the building phase- meaning they had been started and were not far off from completion.
So, how to create your goals and use them to help you achieve your desired outcome? Here are my top 5 tips to setting powerful goals plus what I found worked well for me and many others I have encouraged.
1. KNOW YOUR GOAL/S
Now this sounds simple, but it needs to be clear, specific and measurable.
By measurable I mean you need to be able to put a time and date to completion. Without a date, where is the motivation to work on it daily/weekly/monthly? Once you clarify your goal clearly in your mind you move onto number 2.
2.SETTING A DATE
This tip can be a little daunting but it’s super important because it holds you accountable. You must set a date! An expiration limit to when you want to achieve this/these goal/s. Without a date it becomes nothing more than a wish. If you want to add even more accountability to your goal/s- tell someone, tell many people! It’s not arrogant to proclaim your goals publicly and it will put a little bit of extra pressure on you to go after them, because the more people that know, the more people will ask you about it. A great quote by Napoleon Hill reads ” A goal is a dream with a deadline!”
3. WORK BACKWARDS
What I have found to be really useful and help you become clear on long term goals, even 5, 10, 15 years out is to work backwards. This is a great method because it allows you to break down major end goal/goals step by step, creating smaller goals. For example, if you have a goal for 5 years and you are clear on what that is, you can then divide that into yearly goals, things you want to mark as “done” each year which are a stepping stone towards that 5 year major goal. The more specific the better when it comes to dividing it up. If you want to divide it up monthly, great, half yearly, perfect! It all helps. I have found that when I am setting yearly goals, I like to break that year down into months and then the first month into weeks, especially if you have a new goal. Breaking the first month into weeks can really give you that focus to get going!
4. PUSH YOUR LIMITS
You want to challenge yourself, push yourself out of your comfort zone with a goal or goals that seem out of reach to you at this very moment. Goals that almost make you feel uncomfortable, such as telling other people. For example, if you don’t currently have a job, your goal could be “that by this time next year I will have a job paying….” ($50k, 60k, 70k a year whatever it may be). Then you will apply tip 3 and figure out what you need to do to get there! If you don’t set a goal that challenges you, pushes you out of your comfort zone and excites you – you need a new goal!
5. WRITE IT DOWN AND RE-EVALUATE
It seems obvious, but many people don’t write down their goals. YOU NEED TO! I find the old fashioned pen and paper is the best option over phone/computer because I connect more when I am writing down the words rather than typing them. I still make a copy on my phone and computer but my original is always done in a notebook! Once you have them written/typed down, you need to check them and re-evaluate how you are going. If you have reached a certain goal already, set a new one, don’t stop. If you are a bit behind on others, break them down further (daily even) and work on those, checking them off each night before you sleep and setting new ones for the day ahead.