Setting Goals

Setting Goals

Motivation is vital to having success in any venture and it can come from friends, experiences or yourself. Personally, I don’t want to depend on outside factors for motivation. I want to create it myself. Creating goals is a great way to do this. Here are some specific ways to create effective goals that will propel you forward.

 

Make Your Goal Specific

 “Getting in shape” is not as effective as “squatting 300 lbs” as a goal. Each person will have different goals but make sure they are measurable so you can track progress and make adjustments.

 

Make Actionable Goals 

This one is pretty simple. Make goals you can achieve by taking action. Don’t make those that you need external luck for like winning the lottery. Don’t depend on things you cannot control.

 

Make a time Limit

Open-ended goals don’t make the magic happen like goals with deadlines. Deadlines give you the urgency to get it done and move on to your next goal.

 

Be Realistic

Make sure you set goals that are actually obtainable. Creating unrealistic goals will just deter from making more goals in the future. This is tough because you want to challenge yourself but don’t want “lay-ups”. Be realistic but challenge yourself. If you really don’t know how to do both then create short-term goals first to test your abilities.

 

Track your progress

Make a spreadsheet to track your progress and set sub-goals to make sure you are on pace to get it done. Tracking progress is addictive and it will help motivate you. The more data you’ve recorded the more you want to record. Force yourself to write down your progress 5 separate times and you will get hooked.