Goal Setting Tips

I'm writing it. I'm seeing it. I'm believing it, but, I'm just having trouble getting started. Having trouble getting my head around it. I'm trying to tell you how important it is and yet I'm having trouble setting goals for myself. Maybe my first goal should be outlining my goals in smaller pieces that will make the overall task much more manageable. Join me over the next few posts as I attempt to put my goals down.

Dr. John Ingram Walker in the Summer 2010 issue of LifeWorks, breaks the goals up like this;

Family, spiritual and personal goals
Personal goals are those outside of your career path and often have to do with family, friends and personal growth. List specific objectives you want to achieve in:

1. Your relationships
2. Your spiritual life
3. Your leisure time/relaxing/learning/volunteering

Focus on activities and the amount of time you want to give to these activities. Be reasonable with these areas and then live up to your plan. Take the steps - not leaps - needed to meet your goals.

Career goals
Career success requires a game plan and persistence. Most of us make career wishes or we follow career goals mandated by our companies. We fail to make and write down specific plans for our professional life, such as how to meet our goals and feel successful.

Ask yourself what your goals are for your career. Be specific. How can you advance your career in the next 12 months? What do you want to accomplish in the next five years? What are your lifetime career goals?

Self-improvement goals
Success in life depends on a steady pursuit of self-improvement. Read books that improve your attitude and people skills for 15 minutes every night. Reading just before you go to sleep allows the words to sink into your unconscious. Reading positive literature daily helps dilute the negative in your life. Listen to educational cassettes or disks when you are driving in your car. Join Toastmasters, or a group like it, to help set your words – and your career – on fire. Learn a foreign language.

Goal Activity List
To achieve your goals, act. Act now! Without action, your dreams are worthless, your goals are wishes and your plans are ashes. Action alone gives worth to your dreams. Your actions describe you.

Plug away at the daily activities that fulfill your dreams. Through self-discipline, you can gain the maximum benefits from your time. Cultivating a strong, healthy routine supports a successful, fulfilled life.

Your activities become habits. Habits become your character. Your character becomes your destiny. Become a slave to good habits. Doing the right things right develops strength of character that leads to success.

Routine activities develop habits that will help you achieve your goals and your dreams. If your goal is to write a book in one year, one of your daily activities would be to write a page a day. If you wanted to make a million dollars in annual sales, one of your activities may consist of making 10 sales calls daily.
Focus your activities on those things that will help you achieve your goals. Make a list of activities that you will do daily or weekly to accomplish your goals and do them every day, every week, every year.


LifeWorks is written by John Ingram Walker, M.D., director of Psychiatric Education at Carilion Clinic Saint Albans Hospital. www.CarilionClinic.org

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