Goal Setting to Success: 3 Steps

Goals more often than not appear to be a daunting task after being undertaken. I read a statistic that 88% of New Years Resolutions do not come to fruition. So what seems to be the issue, is it lack of information, time, ambition. Laziness? Or something else all together. Irregardless of the issue for the masses, the method I use tends to be a real eye opener for myself and helps to eliminate what I'm sure are some of the initial problems that prevent forward growth.

Self Assessment

I start out with a self assessment. I take a look at every aspect of my life; friendships, relationships, family, school, work, finances, mental status, hobbies, fun, the works. Think of it as an intervention with yourself on all your bullshit, doubts, fears, and insecurities. Do your best to be 100% honest otherwise you're only limiting yourself in the end. 

Goal Setting

I;m a big believer in the SMART Goals system of goal setting. It adds a huge amount of accountability and eliminates goals that tend to be vague or would otherwise allow you to slip into laziness. If you don't know the breakdown its as follows. 

Specific

Measurable

Attainable

Realistic

Time Bound

You need to be sure to follow this and include each aspect as it will help you genuinely achieve your goal and help to keep you motivated. For example if I were to set the goal "Workout More" how do I know when I have achieved it, is it done if I run for an extra 15 seconds on the treadmill or is it done when I run an extra 4 miles. A much better goal would be "I should workout for at least 30 minutes 5 times a week." <--- SMART Goal.

Now that you have an understanding on what kind of goals to set its time for the fun part. The actual goal setting. While a large population breaks these down into 7+ categories I prefer to break this down into 5 Categories. Social Goals, which include all your relationships be them friends, family, or otherwise - excluding business relationships. Self Improvement Goals, which are all your spiritual and intellectual goals. Physical Goals, which includes healthy eating, exercise, and removal of negative health habits like drinking or tobacco. Financial Goals, which is all business and banking, your assets, taxes, savings accounts, investments are all part of this category. Which brings us to the Fun Goals, this is your vacation, travel, girls/guys night out, video games, raft trip, fun category! 

The Bridge

This is where you take all of the goals that you have created, and work backwards to where you are now, which is easy to tell because of your self assessment. By work backwards to where you are now I don't just mean "I can bench 100lbs, I want to bench 200lbs" and be done. I mean put in a step by step plan to break that big goal you have down into little easily achieved ones. This step by step plan can be broken down into whatever size chunks you'd like it to, however be sure they follow the SMART Goal guidelines and that they are comfortable for you to achieve.

In the end, I hope this helps provide a good backbone to start goal planning and achievement, however without work you'll never see results.