Goal setting in your personal life and business is the powerful process of thinking about your ideal future, to motivate yourself to turn this vision of the future and also accepting it to become reality.

Goal setting for success is an important method of:

• Deciding what is important for you to achieve in your life.
• Separating what is important from what is irrelevant, or a distraction.
• Motivating yourself.
• Building your self-confidence, based on the successful achievement of prior goals set.

*Knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your efforts. You'll also quickly spot the distractions that would otherwise lure you from your course. You will motivate yourself and develop the habits necessary for effectively achieving goals while heightening your self-confidence.

Goal setting techniques are used by top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields.

Give long-term vision and short-term motivation will focus your acquisition of knowledge and help you to organize your time and your resources.

By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure the achievement of those goals. You can see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind.

This also raises your self-confidence as you recognize your ability and capability in achieving the goals that you have set.

• Attitude: Is any part of your mindset holding you back? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you? If so, set a goal to improve your behavior or find a solution to the problem.
• Business:What level do you want to reach in your business?
• Education: Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular? What information and skills will you need to achieve other goals?
• Family: How much family time do you want each week, when can you work and when will you not work?
• Financial: How much do you want to earn by when?
• Physical: Do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this?
• Pleasure: How do you want to enjoy yourself? - You should ensure that some of your life is for you!
• Public Service / Church: What spiritual goals do you have and what do you need to reach those.

Start with the big picture large scale goals you want to achieve. Then break them down into smaller target goals you must accompish to achieve your big picture goal.

Have a plan - having a plan is motivating and builds your confidence. make sure that the goals that you have set are ones that you genuinely want to achieve, not ones that your parents, family, or employers might want (if you have a partner, you probably want to consider what he or she wants, however make sure you also remain true to yourself!)

Then create a daily to-do list of things that you should do today to work towards your Big Picture goals.

• State each goal as a positive statement: Express your goals positively - 'perform this task well' is a much better goal than 'Don't make this stupid mistake.'
• Be precise: Set a precise goal, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure achievement. By doing this you will know exactly when you have achieved the goal, and will enjoy satisfaction from having achieved it.
• Set priorities: When you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones.
• Write goals down: This solidifies them and gives them more force. Any goal not written down is just a wish.
• Keep them in Achievable Increments: Keep the low-level goals you are working towards small and achievable. If a goal is too large you could get caught in the trap of procrastination.
• Set performance goals, not outcome goals: You should take care to set goals over which you have as much control as possible. If you base your goals on personal performance, then you can keep control over the achievement of your goals and draw satisfaction from them.
• Set realistic goals: It is important to set goals that you can achieve. All sorts of people (employers, parents, media, and society) can set unrealistic goals for you. These will position you for discouragement and possibly failure. Most people often do this in ignorance; many set goals that are too high, because they may not appreciate either the obstacles in the way, or understand quite how much skill and/or resources are needed to develop to achieve a particular level of performance.
• When you have achieved a goal, take the time to enjoy the satisfaction of having done so. Absorb the end result of the goal achievement, and observe the progress you have made towards other goals.

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Mind Tools

Once you know where you are going and what it is specifically you are wanting to accomplish, now you need to manage your time and efforts. You will need to balance between; family, job, business, and all other responsibilities. Making a schedule is the best way to manage your time and see if you are spending enough time in all areas or to much in one or another and helps you identify if and where you may need to make adjustments.

If you are wanting to make significant changes you will need to address how much time you allot to leisure activities. If you are wanting to double your business or income you will most likely need to cut back on the golf time or evening TV. I am not saying cut them out all together, you need time to sharpen your blade. But things in life worth having don't come free, they take work and sacrifice.

"I am willing to do today what others won't so I can do tomorrow what others can't." - author unknown

Utilizing a contact manager is very effective for scheduling appointments, work and in addition to family time. Having a visual of what your day and weeks look like help you stay focused on the important things and allow you to have a projection of your free time as well. Oprius is a fantastic scheduling tool. I utilize it in my business to schedule appointments,follow ups and family events so that I make sure I do not forget something or overlap my time commitments. I can stay organized, keep in contact with my customers and clients as well as my associates. It is very user friendly and I find it is powerful in helping business associates stay on track and moving forward. Oprius offers a free 30 day trial.

Tracking is vital to your progression. If you do not know what progress you have made how will you ever stay on course. I find that if you can reflect on what you have accomplished over the last week-months you will have sustainable motivation to accomplish your goals over a period of time. You will also help you to identify areas you need to improve or if your goals are realistic and attainable in the time frame you set.

You should track any goal you make if you want to be successful; money, spiritual, personal. It will motivate you when you look and see that you are making progress no matter how small and it will also keep you accountable to yourself and your goals. This is also where a contact manager/schedule works well also, you can check things off as you accomplish them and track numbers.