 |
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|||
Lay Out Detailed Goals
Your goals can be as simple as refraining from cursing while at the dinner table to as extensive as seeking out a job promotion. No matter what goals you are choosing to pursue, try to make your goals worksheet as detailed as possible.
Long-term goals often fail because no method of achievement tracking was set forth. Since we have used weight loss as a common example in previous articles, let's continue to use it here. If you need to lose one hundred pounds and don't set success points along the way, there's a good chance you will lose your motivation and desire before you even come close to your goal.
Instead you should break down your long-term goal (one hundred pounds) into a series of smaller goals – perhaps every five or ten pounds. Whereas one hundred pounds feels impossible, most of us would agree five pounds is easily manageable. Having accomplished your first goal, you will be enthused and eager to lose your next five pounds, and before you know it the series of success will have guided you to the grand prize: one hundred pounds of weight loss.
Inserting some tracking and success points into your master plan is just one part of laying out a set of detailed goals.
Put A Deadline To Your Goals
Just as successfully accomplishing mini-goals can boost your motivation, placing deadlines on your smaller (and even long-term) goals can give you added urgency and incentive towards meeting them. It's important that you set realistic goals though. You want them to be fully obtainable (no losing ten pounds in one week!), yet not so generous or lengthy that they don't place a light sense of importance or urgency to your goals.
Sometimes people hesitate to place deadlines to their goals in fear of failing to meet them. This is a reasonable concern, but it's important to keep in mind that failing a deadline does not mean failing the end goal.
Alcoholics sometimes fall off the wagon on their journey to permanent sobriety, but you'll never hear the AAA advocate the person who slipped just give up on their goal and drink with reckless abandon. Instead the advice is to pick yourself up off the ground, dust yourself off, evaluate why you may have failed your mini-goal and then determine how to ensure it won't happen again.
The same theory works for deadlines. You're not expected to meet every personal deadline, but they do serve as red flags when you fail to meet them. Failed deadlines can cause you to reevaluate your progress and see if your motivation or dedication dipped downwards for an observable reason.
Deadlines serve as incentive to charge ahead quickly as well as indications that your goals might be slipping should you fail to make the deadlines. Both are very good things.
| Previous - Goals Should Always Be Positive | Next - Achieving Your Goals |