The way you set goals strongly affects their effectiveness. Whether they are professional or personal, set your goals too high and you are likely to find yourself frustrated with your progress, or lack thereof. Set them too low and they don't seem worth doing. In this article you will learn some general guidelines to keep in mind when deciding on your goals, as well as some specific pointers for setting specific goals that can actually be measured and achieved.

General Guidelines

Before you even start to set your goals, you should set the background of goal setting by:

• Understanding your commitment to the goal - Is this really something you want to work on? Or is it something your partner or a TV personality thinks you need to work on?
• Understanding the level you want to reach in that area - For example, if you want to "get in shape", do you want to lose 10 pounds and be able to walk at a good pace on the treadmill without huffing and puffing? Or do you want to train for a mini-marathon?
• Knowing the skills that will have to be acquired and the levels of performance that will be needed - Using the example above, the skills needed to lose 10 pounds and increase your cardiovascular endurance for 30 minutes of brisk walking, is significantly different than the skills needed to prepare for even a mini-marathon.
• Know where this will fit into your overall life goals - If your goal is also to start college while continuing to work full time and be more involved in your children's lives, running the mini-marathon may take more of a commitment than you can realistically give. Or, something else may need to be re-examined or re-prioritized.

After you have given some serious thought to the background of your goals, you are ready to start writing some preliminary goals. First we will present some general guidelines that can help. In the next section are more specifics that can be used to hone your goals in to achievable tools for success.

• Express your goals positively: "By the first weekend in February, I will file all of the papers on my desk at home" is a much better goal than "I won't be a slob in my home office".
• Be Clear and Precise: if you set a precise goal, putting in dates, times and amounts so that achievement can be measured, then you know the exact goal to be achieved. Then you can take complete satisfaction and reward yourself for having achieved it.
• Prioritize: When you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones.
• Write goals down to avoid confusion and give them more force. This does not have to be one of those 4 hours ordeals. Just spend a few minutes after dinner or before bed writing them down in your planner or journal. The important thing is for them to be someplace where you can see them frequently and chart your progress.
• Keep the goals you are working towards immediately (daily or weekly goals) small and achievable. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that you are not making progress towards it. Keeping goals small and incremental gives more opportunities for reward. For example, if you are working on fitness related goals, having a daily goal for the first week of riding the exercise bike for 15 minutes, you are much more likely to be successful than if you make your first week's goal, "Getting in 4 hours of cardiovascular exercise."
• Short-term goals should come from larger goals. In the getting organized example, the longer term goal is to clear out the clutter and develop a more organized home. The shorter-term goals include the tasks to be complete and time frames for completion.

Tips for Making Your Goals Work for You
Hopefully while reading this article you have started to think about what your goals are and how you would like to achieve them. Here are some tricks of the trade that effective goal achievers use:

Set Realistic Goals

Some of the reasons people set their goals unrealistically high include:

• Insufficient information: If you do not have a clear, realistic understanding of your goal and of the techniques and performance needed to achieve it, setting effective and realistic goals will be difficult. This tends to be particularly true if you are embarking on several big life changes at once such as starting a new job at the same time as another self-improvement program. Make researching the requirements of your goal a part of your goal setting to help ensure your success.
• Other people (friends, parents, partners or spouses) can set unrealistic goals for you, based on what they want. Often this will be done in ignorance of your goals. If your goals will impact or involve others, take the time to discuss your feelings and plans so that they can support you and your goals. Offer to help them with theirs as well.
• Expecting perfection. Try as we might to pretend it won't happen, some backsliding is inevitable. Plan for it. If your goal is to stop smoking, part of your plan should be how you will deal with it if you slip up and have a cigarette. Same thing with fitness goals. Plan for how you will deal with it when you overindulge on pizza and ice-cream.
• Not respecting your need for rest and relaxation. Sometimes your body and mind need some time off for good behavior. This doesn't mean that you can take a break from your smoking cessation program, but it does mean that you should build in rewards for yourself and plan for plateaus.

On the other hand, sometimes people set their goals unrealistically low because of:

• Fear of failure: If you are frightened of failure you will not take the risks needed to reach your goals. As you apply goal setting and see the achievement of goals, your self confidence should increase, helping you to take bigger risks. Remember that failure can be a positive thing: it shows you areas where you can improve.
• Taking it too easy: If you are not prepared to stretch yourself and work hard, then you are unlikely to achieve any goals.

Set Specific Goals

Set specific measurable goals. If you achieve all conditions of a measurable goal, then you can be confident and comfortable in its achievement. If you consistently fail to meet a measurable goal, then you can adjust it or analyse the reason for failure and take appropriate action to improve skills.

What makes a goal measurable? There are lots of business acronyms for goal setting, but one of the easiest to remember is still the one we learned in grade school - who, what, when, where and how. "Who" will primarily be you, although you may also enlist the help of a trainer, dietician, tutor or other person to help. "What" is exactly what you will do, e.g. clean out the hall closet, eat an apple, walk the dog. "When" is when you will do this activity. For example, I will walk the dog each afternoon when I come home from work; I will clean out the hall closet the weekend of the 12th; I will eat an apple on my afternoon break each day at work.

"Where" is self-explanatory but important to remember, particularly as you form your back up plans. For example, if walking the dog is part of a daily exercise plan, where will you exercise if there is a blizzard? "How" includes how you will overcome any barriers to achieving your goals. Whether its the blizzard or your mother-in-law making you crave a cigarette, plan for how you will overcome barriers and achieve your goals.

Setting goals at the correct level is a skill that is acquired by practice. Use each instance of not fully achieving your goals as a learning experience in goal setting. Don't be afraid to try new things and think of self-improvement as a journey.

 This is for general informational purposes only and it is not intended to provide anyone with specific advice or recommendation. This is not a substitute for advice from an appropriate professional. If you feel you need further help, we strongly suggest you seek assistance from an appropriate professional.

For more information
P: Don Kottick
W: www.realestatesimulator.com
P: 1-888-260-7212 x 31