Goal Setting – Long, Medium and Short Term Goals (Andrew Collings)

Most experts agree that anything can be achieved through goal setting. However, if you are like most people, you may have tried a goal setting program in the past and not succeeded. You may have set goals in a very happy and possibly inebriated state on New Years Eve and promised yourself that this is going to be the year you will achieve your goals – however by the end of the year the goals have not been achieved, and the list you set on new years eve is nowhere to be found.

Today dear reader, we are going to explore goal setting and share a goal setting secret that has been used by successful individuals for generations. A system that with only an hour or so a week, you will be achieving your goals in no time.

Goal setting generally consists of writing down goals and revisiting them. In order to achieve their goals successful people take this further. They have four to five main generic goals in their lives and break these down into more achievable components and goals. There program is broken down into five components for you to use as detailed below:

Long Term Goals (eg 7 – 15 years): At this level the goals are more generic and generally deal with four key areas of your life, for example, Health, Financial, Family and Social. A goal at this level under financial may be to have a net worth of $10million dollars.

Yearly Goals: These goals are written generically but within the scope of a one year time frame. The goals again contribute to the four or five aspects of your life (studies have shown that four to five areas achieves the most success). Ask yourself what you are going to have to do in the next year to achieve your goals. For example, under the above financial goal, you may state that you have to increase your net wealth by $100k. To do this you may decide that setting up your own side business is the way to go. As such, your yearly goal would be to set up a side business (in a certain field), that builds $100k worth of wealth. A good number of yearly goals is around 8-10.

Monthly Goals: We are now starting to get into the specifics of goal settings. This is where you provide the details of how you are going to achieve your yearly goals. Ascertain what you would have to do each month to achieve the goals.

Weekly Goals: Weekly is similar to monthly specific goals. Again write what you will have to achieve each week to meet your monthly goals.

Daily Goal and to do list: This is the base level of goal setting, and is the most important. This is where you take action. When starting your day, look at your 7-15 year goals, your yearly goals, your monthly goals and your weekly goals. Write a list of what you will need to do today to move yourself closer to your goal. On your to do list, highlight the key tasks that you will need to complete today. Focus on these tasks first.

And that the system in a nutshell. To recap, Develop 7-15 year goals (around four) that are a sentence each. Develop yearly goals (around 8-10) that sit under your four main goals (a few paragraphs each). Write what you will need to do each month to achieve your 8 – 10 goals). Write what you will need to achieve each week to achieve your monthly goals. Write a “to do list” at the start of each day, after reading all of your other goals. Highlight the activities on your “to do list” that will bring you closer to achieving your goals and do these first.

The system is successful because it first ascertains what you want to achieve in your life, and then provides specific goals, first at a larger time frame and then more specific to help you achieve your life time goals.

If you just write down what you want to achieve (eg have $1million in a bank account) without ascertaining the reasons why you want this, then it is more likely that your goal will come unstuck.

Good luck with your goal setting!!!

To help ensure success in life it is good for every one of us to have a personal Development Plan (PDP) to guide us along life’s road. Your Personal development is not a destination, you’ll never get ‘there’ wherever ‘there’ is. Your personal development is ongoing so as you accomplish or master one area of your life you will move onto the next level or expand that area.

Many people have a ‘mental block’ when it comes to addressing problems about themselves and there are those who are terrified about taking time and thinking about any such problem. These folks find it much, much easier to work on a project or to help someone else solve their own problems but won’t even consider addressing their own. For this reason and others it is important that we all have a PDP.

Based on your current situation and role, a PDP will help to prioritize the most important areas of your life, that you need to concentrate on and will point you in the right direction for further advice and training.

Identifying Areas that need development.

When constructing your PDP I suggest you begin by identifying the areas in your life that need attention. It can be challenging to identify areas of your life that need development, especially if you are not in tune with who you are, what you desire, what you have and don’t have. You have to be aware of where your life is now in terms of what’s working and what’s not, and also what you are ignoring totally. Just because you have tried in the past to develop certain areas of your life and failed, doesn’t mean you cannot be successful in the future, the timing may just be wrong.

For many of us our personal development goals are just not strong enough, they have no ‘humph’ in them, no great desire behind them so we keep changing them from day to day or year to year. I’m sure you know those people who on January 1st every year list out the things they want to achieve for that year, when they have not even tried to accomplish their goals for the previous year.

So to identify the areas in your life you need to develop, the first thing you need to do is to ask yourself “what are the areas in my life that are very important to me and to my well being and my existence.” these areas will be different for each of us, for me they are:

1. Physical health

2. Mental/emotional

3. Spiritual

4. Achievement/recreation

5. Financial

6. Relationships-romantic and family

Be careful not to get too hung up on names and what falls into what category, just write them down. This is really just to make it easier to decide on what you want to improve in your life and is by no means carved in stone.

What are your Personal Development goal for each Area

Once you have identified the important areas of your life, write down everything that you would like to improve for each area as it relates to your personal growth. In most cases your development goal is going to be about either building on your existing strengths or developing new skills and competencies. So under ‘Physical’ you can state how you would like your body to look, do you need to join a gym today, stop eating meat, exercise five times a week and so on. The key here is to write down anything and everything that comes into mind, whatever you can imagine write it down. You can include short-term goals –something you may want to achieve this week and also long-term goals –things you want to achieve in twenty to twenty-five years. Make the goals ones that you can get excited about.

Put a Timeline on each goal

Once you have listed the goals for each area of your personal development, you then have to take the time to put a time line on each goal. It’s not important right now to know how you are going to accomplish your goals. All you do right now is to write down a time frame within which you’ll want to operate. By deciding when you’ll achieve a goal providence comes to your aid in making them a reality. If one year is your time frame and you are committed to this then write down one year. If it’s five years then write down five years.

Begin with your one-year goal

You want to choose the one goal that you consider to be the most important in any of the areas you have identified, make it a goal that would give your great excitement and make you feel that your year was well spent if you were to accomplish it. Next write a paragraph or two stating why you are totally committed to achieving this goal within the year. Include why this is a must for you, what benefits will you gain by achieving it, what will you lose or miss if you didn’t achieve it. Whatever reasons you come up with ensure that they are strong enough to get you to follow through. If they are not, then come up with better and more empowering reasons or better goals.

Where are you now

Once you have determined what your one-year goal will be, begin by analyzing where you are starting from. This will become the “baseline” from where you measure your progress. A clear awareness of where you are now will help greatly in facilitating your development. If you find it hard to focus on this or to be honest with yourself, you can ask for feed back from someone who knows you well and can be objective. You can ask your friends, family, or even your work colleagues as they are all observing you and are affected by the things you do and will therefore have some views about your skills. Ask them questions like:

“What am I good at”,

“What am I great at”,

“What do you think I could be better at”

Make sure they are specific in what they are saying to you. If you do not want a long drawn out epistle from your friends you can limit them to two or three comments.

If you choose to ask someone else, pay careful attention to what they are saying as not everything you hear will be flattering to you and some comments will be useless to you. Note whatever is said keeping in mind that good feedback is always specific, clear and non-critical, so if someone says “you’re always doing crazy things’ this should not be take as feedback but criticism and you should total ignore it, it’s not worth your time.

Once you are done combine your thoughts and the feedback you get and make a list by writing down what you think were your strengths and weaknesses. You need to be honest with yourself here. Check to see if there are any patterns emerging from the comments.

The End Result

At this point what you do is to imagine what it would be like if you got up tomorrow morning and your problem was solved. Write down how you will feel, what you will be thinking and what it will be like. Make sure these statements are made in the affirmative and are positive. So instead of writing “I feel o.k. about the way I’m dressing now” you should write “I fell happy and confident about my clothes and how they look on me”

Action Plan

Next you need to identify what you need to do to take you to where you want to be. This is the time to think creatively about what you need to do. There is a wide range and a large number of resources out there, ready and waiting for you to use to take you in the right direction. There will be a mixture of self-study, formal training, informal training and “on the job” experiences. Only you will know what’s best for you, your budget and your lifestyle. So if your goal is to be physically fit then you will want to find out information on health and fitness. Your fist stop would be your doctor, and then maybe a trainer, then you need information on a gym that fits what you need. You get what I mean. After you have written down all the things you need to do, put them in some order so that you know what you will be doing first, and what’s next and so on. Break it down to its simplest task if possible. Take your time when doing your plan, and one important point is that it doesn’t have to be perfect, so do not try and make it so.

Your Reward

Though not necessary you may want to include a series of rewards as you make progress and achieve the smaller goals. You can make it as simple as a slice of your favourite cheesecake after you have been working out for six weeks. For some people no extra incentives are required, the improvement is reward enough but small rewards are a good idea still.

Review Your Plan

Once you have finished writing out you PDP it is always a good idea to review it. It’s a good idea to take a break away from your initial PDP of about five days to a week, then return to it and review it. When reviewing the plan you may also ask someone else to look it over and give their views. If there are any changes that you think are necessary make them.

Implement the Plan

Now that you have completed your PDP, it’s time to implement it. Start with the first task you must accomplish and keep going until all the tasks are finished. Each time you complete a task or do something you are not used to doing, do a kind of short review. What did you do well and what could you have done better.

Review Your Progress

By checking your progress you will be able to reflect on what is working and what is not, so you can adjust your actions or change course if you are not achieving what you want. You have to decide how often you check on your progress, it could be every week, every month or every six weeks.

When you develop your own personal development plan and follow through with action, it can be one of the most satisfying things you have ever done. It can even build your self-confidence and boost your self-esteem, as you will have a sense of surety about what you are about to do.

The key here is to take the whole process one step at a time. If you ever feel yourself getting overwhelmed, it could be a sign that you are taking on too much. Slow down and concentrate on one thing at a time. Now get going and enjoy the process.

Personal Development teachers and Self Improvement gurus have constantly told you that if you want to create joy, abundance and success in your life yu must first change your beliefs. They tell you that in order to achieve the same level of success as the high-achievers you must also be willing to take some form of action no matter how small it is. But how do you motivate yourself to take action when your whole world seems to be telling you that you can never achieve your goals?

There is only one way!

Change your beliefs – This is real Personal Development Power!

The greatest of Self Improvement teachers tell you that in order to achieve success and have the ability to take action you must first alter your beliefs. But why is this and how can you do it?

Well, our beliefs are merely a set of thoughts that you have about a given subject. They do not need to be, and usually aren’t, based of any real hard facts. Did you know that there are many psychological studies that show the views people have about themselves are wrong. Most people tend to be very hard on themselves and rarely give themselves creadit for their achievements or recognize their own strengths. If you are a normal human beiing then you are doing exactly the same thing!

Since thought always precedes action, it is imperative to change your disempowering, self-defeating destructive beliefs to empowering ones that will create drive, confidence, faith and, ultimately, success!

By changing your beliefs your core thoughts will change and thus your actions will be completely different than they have been before and in alignment with your desires. I can give you 3 simple, yet highly effective, steps which you can start to use immediately to change your beliefs and your life. They only require a small amount of effort but you do need a lot of persistence to keep following them! Remember its all about taking action.

Step 1. Learn to recognize your emotional responses and you will learn to control your thoughts.

When you begin to watch your emotions you will learn to control your thoughts. Our emotions are just a by-product of the thoughts we are thinking. When you think a sad thought you get sad and when you think a happy thought you feel happy. Although to many people this sounds overly simply YOU must realize that there is great wisodm and huge rewards that come from watching your feelings.

When you feel bad it means you are thinking about the things you do not want. When you are experiencing joyful happy emotions it is a clear indication that your thoughts are in the same direction as your goals and desires. Feeling good means you are focusing on the things in life that you really want! Teach yourself to be aware of your emotional state. By watching how you feel you can easily regulate your thoughts.

Make the decision now to watch how you are feeling, especially when you are concentrated on your goals and desires. When you feel bad and are experiencing negative emotions it is a sign that your thinking is in the wrong direction. Feeling bad is an indication that you are focused on the things in life that you do not want. If you are feeling good then you are focused on the benefits of actually having what you want. You always get more of what you focus on even quantum physics is now telling us this!

So, use your emotions to gauge how you are feeling and if you are feeling bad then begin immediately to change your thoughts to the opposite. Focus on what you want until you begin to feel good. Through persistence you will thus condition yourself for success.

Step2. Let Go!

Don’t try to force the issue by trying to work out every little detail of how you are going to achieve your desires. Just by focusing on them you set in motion powerful forces that will bring people, situations and circumstances that will open up opportunities for achieve what you want.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a plan of action. In fact this is very desirable. Just don’t get so caught up in the plan that you lose sight of the goal.

Learn to have an optimistic yet detached view. By grabbing and trying to force every situation in your favour you merely cause yourself frustration. This will mean you never enjoy the journey towards success but more than that it means you are focusing on the lack of your desire. You always get more of what you focus on!

Step 3. Take action!

Being flexible and allowing the Universe to show you the way towards your goals and desires is definitely the best way to achieve success.

It is necessary, however, for you to take some action or at least be willing to take some. Take one step forward and the Universe will take ten steps to meet you!

The whole point of changing your beliefs is so that your thoughts change and thus your actions change also. If you take action, even tiny baby steps, towards your desires and goals you have already ensured that you will eventually reach them.

If you want to walk from LA to New York you may feel overwhelmed by the sheer hugeness of the goal. However, if you walk 5 miles every day within a week you will be 35 miles closer to your goal. It may take you almost a year and a half to reach your destination but it is possible when you break the goal down and take some action! When you are willing to take action you will find that strange things begin to happen. You may just find that the Universe sends a Porsche to give you a lift! – “The journey of a thousands miles begins with a single step”, Chinese proverb.

If you diligently follow the 3 steps I have outlined I promise you that your life will be transformed and your dreams will be fulfilled in ways that will amaze you.

There are 3 basic element to change your life, you need to ask, believe and receive the new life, you also need to live your new life, just don’t imagine it but really believe and feel that your life has changed, you should set specific goals, create plans, but the most important is to always stay positive and be grateful for the things you have. This science proves beyond any doubt that what the success scientists of the 20th century were teaching us is absolutely true. These experts coach and educate those who want to become a success in life and those who want to become a success in business.

When you create your life’s new plan remember it is a journey and you need to act like you are living this journey using your thoughts and imagination, and see the vision as if you are there in this new life. To stop the negativity you need to think of something positive quickly, think of a pet, listen to music, start thinking of the opposite of the negative thought.

When planning a personal development plan you need to alter your life style and career path. Defining a personal development plan would mean altering the career path life cycle. If you develop a personal plan and believe in it, and practice this and see yourself in this new plan it will be only a matter of time before in comes in reality. will be only a matter a time. A good plan will also act as a performance assessment tool and a blueprint of all your day-to-day operations.

The personal development plan will only work if you truly are motivated and believe in this new life. Without the unpredictable variable such as luck, coincidence and the like, to rely on an emotional impulse such as motivation to drive us forward is like waiting for food to appear in your cupboards without going to the store to buy it. And the most convenient source of motivation comes from these books and seminars.

The problem is 99 percent of success psychology can’t provide the guarantee that 95 percent of the population needs in order to be convinced it works. These experts coach and educate those who want to become a success in life and those who want to become a success in business.

Everybody has one or another personal aspect to improve and better and hence a personal development coaching business could be a good idea as not only will you be making money, you will be helping so many individuals develop and improve their skills.

There are lots of self declared gurus on the internet as well as in the book stores who want you to follow such rigid routines and they are not actually interested in helping you but want you to continue following them so that you become dependent on them and thus, be able to use you as a predictable source of income. Oh sure, I liked to believe that I was in control of myself, but why then was I not able to motivate myself if I did indeed have so much control. The speaker is able to tap into your emotions.

You get so caught up in “what if” that you end up not doing anything. Furthermore, they have the nerve to complain and cry about it when they are doing nothing to try to better their situation.

If you have not picked up a book lately, you might be surprised to find how much you can learn through reading. You can start a new life with the proper knowledge, if you just pick it up. If you want to succeed, take some time to read. What you can learn is amazing. Take a look at how it can work for you.
You can get a lot of ideas if you just read a little. Take some time to look at the opportunities that come up when you take some time out to read and apply those things to your life. You will find out a lot of different information and you’ll be able to take advantage of opportunities that are out there for you. Take some time right now and begin to read your way to success.
Let us see how do you do this. First, read about things that you are interested in. If you are interested in something and you would like to learn more about it, read about it. There are a lot of books out there and they have information on just about everything. Or, you can go online and do your research that way. If you have the right information, you can find a lot of different opportunities.
Second, in order to be successful, figure out what you need to know and then do that, so that you can get where you want to go.
When you read, you can pick up facts about anything you need to know- this can make your life better and you can achieve your ultimate goals.
Third, reading is a way to gain knowledge. It might even make you more intelligent. When you read, you are using your mind. You are gaining knowledge that you are going to use later. This is particularly useful, especially as a skill. You are putting your mind to good use instead of mindlessly doing nothing. Take the opportunity to read whatever you can. You can feel proud of yourself that your reading is going to help you succeed.
Fourth, when you read, you can use what you read to help others. Read about anything you want to, learn as much as you can about it, and then pass it on. You can show others that they can learn to become successful simply if they read. You are doing not just yourself a favor, but you are doing others a favor, too. This is a wonderful feeling to have and is something you should be proud of.
Fifth, reading gives you power. You give yourself power when you read about anything you want, and you are strengthening both body and mind. You are prepared and ahead of the game, and are going to be ready for any opportunity that comes along. You can get advantages and gain power simply by reading. This is a wonderful goal to have and is something you need to take advantage of anytime you can.
Reading is a wonderful tool. You will find that it is something you will do forever. No matter what you are doing or what you need to find out, reading is something that can help get you where you want to go. No matter what you decide to read, you can not go wrong. When you read, you open up your mind and empower yourself by gaining knowledge.