By: Ken Austin
Setting and achieving goals are two sides of the spectrum; yet they are both needed if your life is to have a purpose and meaning.
The first step of goal setting
Setting your goal will be the first step. It is when you clarify, list down, and construct the step-by-step process on how to achieve your dreams. This also the time that you will need to reflect, not only about your past achievements or frustrations but also about your future worries and angsts.
To prevent yourself from being overwhelmed with plans, however, goals have to be simplified and broked down into much smaller units. In this way, you will easily access every angle of your goal, whenever there is a need to review any of its components.
Since the very purpose of goal setting is to be achievable, your goals should be challenging enough to stimulate you but realistic enough so as not to discourage you in the end.
For instance, you want to set a goal for your personal growth, as a person and as a professional. These two can be easily confused into one thing but they are different. Do not make the mistake of planning to improve your personal over-all goals in order to "carry over" your professional goal. Attack the two concerns separately.
Of course it is only natural that some aspect of your professional goals are preset in your personal goal setting and vice versa. This is only natural.
But it should be clear that from this two types of goal setting, you should a priority; don't swallow too much even if it's a good thing. It is also important to come up with a list of specific goals in aid for the major goal, in descending order, that is, the most important part being in the top of the list.
The second step of goal setting
Setting your goal is very important. Just don't forget that creating and even planning ways to achieve it is equally important. You should also have a method of checking your progress.
Say, for example, you have decided to prioritize your personal growth and you have set a goal for this. What you will need is a procedure in which you can monitor each step of the goal so as to make the necessary revisions.
And since goal setting is never done to isolate yourself from the rest, make it a habit to surround yourself with people that share your vision. This will help you in motivating more of yourself into achieving what you have decreed for your self earlier.
Achieving your goals
Setting up goals will never mean an iota if there is no effort on your part to achieve it. It's not there to be put on display or to remind yourself that once upon a time, you were sensible enough to create a goal for yourself. And don't try to convince yourself that there are goals that are really meant to be written and nothing more; there is no such thing.
Goals are meant to be achieved. This "achieving part" completes the goal setting process. What makes achieving goals twice as difficult compared with the goal setting part is that people tend to separate the two. Don't do this. The setting and achieving is intertwined, in fact, two parts of a whole process.
