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Why Set Goals? Setting Goals Effectively

Deciding Your Goals

Your Lifetime Goals

The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime - setting Lifetime goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.

To give a broad coverage of all important areas in your life, try to set goals in all of the following categories:

  • Artistic
    Do you want to achieve any artistic goals? If so, what?
  • Attitude
    Is any part of your mind-set holding you back? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you? If so, set goals to improve or cure the problem, even if the goal is only to get help.
  • Career
    What level do you want to reach in your career?
  • Education
    Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular? What information and skills will you need to achieve other goals?
  • Family
    Do you want to be a parent? If so, how are you going to be a good parent? How do you want to be seen by a partner or by members of your extended family?
  • Financial
    How much do you want to earn by what stage?
  • Physical
    Are there any athletic goals you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this?
  • Pleasure
    How do you want to enjoy yourself? - you should ensure that some of your life is for you!
  • Public Service
    Do you want to make the world a better place by your existence? If so, how?
  • Social
    Do you have any social ambitions?
Once you have decided your goals in these categories, assign a priority to them from A to F. Then review the goals and re-prioritise until you are satisfied that the goals and priorities you have set reflect the shape of the life that you want to lead. Also ensure that the goals that you have set are the goals that you, not your parents, spouse, family, or people around you want them to be.

How to Start to Achieve Your Lifetime Goals

Once you have set your lifetime goals, now set a 25 year plan of smaller goals that should be achieved if you are to reach your lifetime plan. Then set a 5 year plan, 1 year plan, 6 month plan, and 1 month plan of progressively smaller goals that should be reached to achieve your lifetime goals. Finally set a daily to-do list of things that you should do today to achieve your lifetime goals. At this stage many goals may simply be to read books and gather information on the achievement of your goals so that you can improve the quality and realism of your goal-setting.

Finally review your plans, and make sure that they fit the way in which you want to live your life.

Staying on Course

Once you have decided your first goal plans, keep the process going by reviewing and updating your to-do list on a daily basis. Some people recommend doing this as the last thing done the day before, others as the first thing done in the morning - this is up to you. Periodically review your other plans, and modify them to reflect your changing priorities.

An effective way of doing this is to use the LifePlan goal-setting software on a daily basis. Information on this can be accessed by clicking the LifePlan button below.

Links

References

Why Set Goals? Setting Goals Effectively

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