Have you ever thought about what you would do five years down the line? Or did you have any new year resolutions? And what happened to your gym membership? Did you finish the online course you enrolled in on coursera? What about your GMAT preparation?
No? Or may be yes.
We all set goals. But hardly find the right time and energy to fulfill them in proposed duration and expected performance. Think about it. You need to set goals in a more proper way in order to accomplish them. To accomplish your goals, however, you need to know how to set them. You can’t simply say, “I want” and expect it to happen. Goal setting is a process that starts with careful consideration of what you want to achieve, and ends with a lot of hard work to actually do it.
I present you the 3 Golden rules of effective goal setting:
- Find your motivation
- When you set goals for yourself, make sure motivate you and there is value in achieving them. If you have great interest in the outcome, then you’ll work hard to make them happen. Motivation is key to achieving goals.
- You should set goals that relate to the high priorities in your life. You need focus and only few goals with enough time to devote to each one. You must have an “I must do this” attitude. When you have this, you do anything to make the goal a reality.
- Set SMART Goals
- Goals must be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time Bound
- You must clearly define your goals. Don’t just say be a good basketball player. Design a plan for this involving the training and activities you will be involved in throughout that month.
- Set goals, which you can measure like complete 5 chapters in one week. Don’t just target Study chemistry. Have a number in mind.
- Make sure it is possible for you to accomplish the goal. Don’t set impossible targets. Like lose 10 pounds in a week. C’mon don’t be silly.
- Set goals relevant to you, your career, your personality. Goals must have a direction. Meaningless goals take you no where but keeps you wasting time.
- Always target goals with a time frame. Read 2 novels per month, or read newspaper every morning. Don’t just vaguely say you want to improve your reading skills.
- Track progress
- What is important to goal accomplishment is you should be able to track your goals.
- Every night, before sleeping, you should think about what you did today and what do you have to complete by tomorrow. This will increase your productivity by 10x.
- Also, if the time period of your goal is an year, divide it into sprints. Each month track overall progress and note it down on a paper and stick on your table/cupboard. This will give a larger picture of you attaining the goal in right time. And this will further motivate you.
Pro Tip:
Last but not the least, you must celebrate your progress. Don’t take it as an arduous climb, but as fun journey full of learning and experience. This is really important for future goals. And helps you not flip back and lose all your progress. For example, consider you were 200 pounds. You did weight training and strictly followed a diet for an year and lost 50 pounds. But inside you are sad, frustrated, so one day when you are feeling real low, you end up eating so much that from that day on wards you give up.
You don’t want that, do you? So you must have cheat meals once every month. Similarly, you must celebrate your progress in some way to be successful in big picture.
Wish you all the best, go ahead and seize the day!
P.S. I am there to talk if you want to discuss anything. Feel free to drop a mail at garimagupta76@gmail.com
The Wanderer 