8 Goals to Achieve Success
For most of us, if someone were to ask us what we want, what we really really want? We wouldn’t have the answer. So few people spend their time on setting goals. Goal setting is one of the most important things to do in life. It’s like the blue print of your life, it enables you to have a wide vision and the milestone needed to track progress.
When you have goals which you’ve set out to achieve and you focus on these goals, your brain starts to function differently. Just writing down your goals changes your mind set and that is the most important aspect in success.
The mind shift. Sometimes we lack vision or clarity to set long term goals, but you can use the following guidelines to help you in your goal setting journey.
1. Personal Development Goals
What do you want to achieve in your personal life? Do you want to read more; do you wish you were more focused? Do you want to be happier and more grateful? Personal development goals do exactly that, they develop you into being a better person.
The best way to set these goals is to draw up a SWOT analysis
The SWOT analysis helps you identify your
Strengths: What skills come naturally to you? What are you good at? You stand a high chance of succeeding when you operate in your natural being. Strengths are internal factors that contribute to our success. You are better and have competitive advantage when you exercise and utilize these traits.
Weaknesses: Where do you fall short? Do you have bad time management? Do you get lazy when not challenged? It’s important to remember that weaknesses are not so much to hinder us from reaching our goals but it’s to motivate us to put in the work necessary as we are all perfectly imperfect. Weaknesses are internal qualities such as fear and procrastination
Opportunities: What do you have before you that you can capitalize on? What resources are available to you that you haven’t tapped into as yet? Opportunities are all around us and goal setting plays a pivotal role in helping us realize them.
Opportunities are external resources that we can use, such us attending university or obtaining funding for your business.
Threats: What is standing between you and your goal? Threats are external factors that would make it harder for you to reach success.
Threats can be, lack of funding, someone who doesn’t want to see you succeed and certain economic conditions. Threats are not there to discourage you but to make you more resourceful and help you become a problem solver.
2. Physical Goals
Physical goals are things you set to achieve for your overall health. In order for you to be able to take over the world you need to be able to do so and only your health allows you that privilege. Maybe you can eat healthier or lose a few pounds.
Some people need to gain some pounds as well, especially those diagnosed with certain illnesses. It is not uncommon for someone to recover fully from a disease, people who are suffering from cancer go into full remission of the cancer cells. This shows the importance of setting goals to be in the best shape of your life.
3. Financial Goals
Set Smart Goals
How much money do you want to be worth? How much do you want to have? What salary do you expect? These goals are so important as they determine a lot of things we do. They help our spending behavior, they determine what we study, what type of business we open and many other things.
You need to set clear and realistic goals to achieve financial success and then set out to attract all those things that bring financial success. If you want to run a multi-million dollar business you need to know everything about the business and how to best run it, you need to get certain mentors and become business savvy to bring that business to fruition.
4. Career and Professional Goals
If you want to succeed in your professional life, what do you need to do get to where you want to get? What kind of qualification should you have? How can you best add value to your organization? Without career goals, you may find yourself wasting time in a profession you have no real desire for and that is a sad fate for anyone. Career goals also fit in best with the SWOT analysis.
If you want to negotiate a higher salary or commission bracket, you need to be able to increase in the value your services bring. That is done by learning more getting more experience, working on the challenging projects and so forth. Career goals help you identify your target and set plans in place so you don’t miss when you hit.
5. Family Goals
.
This differs from person to person. Family goals can be for goals for your present family or future family if you are not yet married or wish to have kids later in life. What kind of suburb do you see your family setting into? What type of relationship do you desire with your loved ones? Do you wish you spent more Christmases with your brother and his kids or saw your parents more?
You should be able to assess your current situation and see what fits best. Family is an important part of our lives and we should learn to cherish it and make the time for those closest to us.
6. Social Goals
Everybody needs to have a cause they believe in and should devote their time selflessly to that cause. What can you do to fight off poverty in certain areas, you can help under privileged children and AIDS orphans, maybe help abused women and kids. There are countless organizations committed to counselling and helping kids.
For those of us who are more fortunate should help the helpless and aid those in need. One of the life laws is that in order to receive we must first give. So set out social goals, what your bit will be for the community. Maybe you want to devote X amount of time monthly to teaching computer skills to undeveloped communities or give a percentage of your income to specific NGOs.
7. Spiritual Goals
These are more personal goals. This is regarding your beliefs and religions. Maybe you could spend more time in prayer or meditate more in the mornings. It’s good to be spiritually strong and focus your energy on God.
8. Pleasure Goals
How do you want to spoil yourself? Do you want to travel more? Go to more exotic beaches, buy a very luxurious sports car?
Spend some time thinking about your goals. These categories are just a guideline to help you break down these goals. Once you’ve got these goals in place, focus on breaking them down to monthly, weekly, daily even hourly goals. It is important that they are in bite size chunks. That is the only way you will keep going. When you don’t bite off more than you chew.
These goals need to be what you really want to achieve. They need to be your desires. Not family, or friends but yours alone. The journey to success is very difficult and if it is not what you want, you will quit and quitting will make you feel like a failure which goes back to that mind set.
Types of Goals
There are specific types of goals. We can easily break them down into the three
1. Progress Goals
These are the goals we set to help us achieve the ultimate goals.
i.e. if your physical goal is to lose 10kgs, then process goals would be to work out 3-4 times a week for one hour.
2. Performance Goals
Performance goals are in direct proportion to what we want to achieve. Usually very short term. If you want to negotiate a higher salary as a career goal, that would be based on performance. Say you wanted to increase your sales by 25%, calling more customers and getting more leads is one way to do that. Once you’ve gotten those leads, you base your success on how many people you are able to close, and the more you close, the higher your sales, these are performance based goals.
3. Outcome Goals
These are solely focused on the outcome.
Outcome goals can be detrimental as they fail to take into consideration small progress made though out and they do not always reveal the full picture. Obtaining a law degree in record time and graduating Cum Laude is an example of an outcome goal.
It is only focused on the end result. if you don’t manage however, to graduate cum Laude you may right yourself off as a failure because in essence you have not reached your goal, but you also dismiss the fact that you are now a qualified lawyer with the skills and knowledge that add tremendous value to your life.
Whenever you set yourself out to achieve something, prepare yourself for failure and disappointment, because anything in life that is worth having does not come easy and true character is only developed when you can dust yourself off and start all over again. Resilience and persistence need to be built and we need to train our minds to being tougher and not easily shaken by fear and doubts.
You are so much tougher, wiser and smarter than you give yourself credit for. Start believing that you are good enough and worthy of all your dreams and that belief system is truly what will set you apart.
Follow these guidelines and feel free to use them, share with friends and even make part of your goal planning and you will find yourself onto bigger and better things.
