Last week I held my first yearly seminar on goal setting. Over 40 participants worked collectively and in small groups to start on the process of selecting their goals for 2021. You can view the video HERE. I will be following this up with another workshop on Friday, Feb 5 at 8:30 am.
Even if you could not attend the first session, you are welcome at the second event.
Throughout my lifetime, I have found goal setting to be one of the key components to success in life. I have thoroughly studied the process of goal setting in order to determine best practices for succeeding and achieving goals. The process I have created has been useful for me, and I have adopted it successfully in the work with my clients and students. Whenever I engage with a new student or client, I’ll begin by asking them to clarify their goals as much as they can. Today and over the next few weeks, I will try to share with you how to adapt the process in your own life and work.
A: Communicate As Clearly As You Can With Yourself About What Your Goal Is.
- What? The more specific you can be about what your goal is and what it is not, the clearer your mind is about what you intend to accomplish.
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By When? Your mind works better on helping you achieve your goal if you give it a time limit by when the goal is to be finished. Is this a lifetime goal which you can achieve at any time during your life, or is it a short term goal which needs to be achieved in a certain amount of time?
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Why do you want to achieve this goal? Our mind wants clear reasons and motivations for why you chose this particular goal.
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How will you go about achieving this goal? While you probably do not have a complete plan for how you will achieve your goal, your mind wants to know how you will approach the challenge. It wants to start with some broad strokes of how to begin.
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With whom will you work to achieve your goals? We are collaborative beings who have all evolved from tribal groups in Africa. Our mind knows that we are more likely to achieve our goals if we work with others. I advise having at least one support/accountability buddy to work with you to keep going and to overcome the inevitable obstacles you will face.
B: Focus on Only A Few Goals at a Time.
It is easy to overwhelm our minds by creating too many goals. If we set out to go into many directions at once, we are likely to get nowhere in achieving our goals. I suggest selecting only three or four goals at a time. I suggest selecting one each from the following categories:
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A health goal: physical, mental, or spiritual
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A personal relationship goal
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A work or a financial goal
C: Write out Your Goals by Hand, and Post Them Somewhere Where You See Them on a Regular Basis.
Your mind needs to be reminded on a regular basis of what you are working on. In our current society and state of affairs, we know how easy it is to be distracted by noise in the environment.
