A Goal Setting Plan for Your Success

A goal is a dream written down! A goal setting plan helps you to take focused steps towards your dream.

Your time and your life are precious. A big waste of your time is to spend years accomplishing what you could have accomplished in a few months.

My personal mission is to help people to achieve their goals faster than they could without my help.

By following this proven goal setting process, you will be able to accomplish more in less time that you could have imagined.

Do you want to:

• achieve financial independence?
• spend more time with your family?
• achieve greater health and fitness?
• become more productive at work?

Whatever your goal, did you know that 80% of goal setting studies in sport and business show improvement in less than 6 weeks? You can transform your experience to one of happiness and success.

In my work with athletes, business professionals and students I have found that goal setting is a road map to your success in any part of your life.

Dr Banfield of Harvard concluded that the most important determinant of personal and financial success is having a “long-term perspective”. This involves creating a personal vision of the type of person you want to be.

"The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them into the impossible."

Try these two goal setting activities to create your personal vision?

Once you have a vision of where you want to be in the different areas of your life, it is now possible to develop definite plans to achieve your dreams.

Long term goal setting and the importance of balance

How often have we heard the story of the busy executive who has achieved success in their working life, only to have missed seeing their children grow up, or not pursued something that interested them because they were too focused on their goal of work.

To achieve balance in your goal setting plan, set goals in different areas of your life.

Some examples of goals in different areas include:

• Family goals. Do you want to spend more quality time with your family? What sort of parent or partner do you want to be?
• Education goals.Do you want to learn something new, or become and expert in a particular area? What new skills do you want to acquire?
• Diet and fitness goals.Are you wanting to lose weight or become fitter? Perhaps you want to improve your game or remain motivated to keep training. Do you want to remain healthy as you get older? What steps do you need to take?
• Mindset and behavior goals.Do you want to maintain a positive mindset? Are there behaviors that you want to improve upon? Do you want to have more pleasure and happiness in your life?
• Financial goals. What sort of money do you want to earn? Do you want to achieve financial freedom? If so, how?
• Career goals. Where do you want to be in your career? What type of job do you want to work in?

A common difficulty in goal setting is that people set too many goals. Do you have too many goals in the different areas of your life?

While you may be eager and motivated to achieve all these goals, prioritize your goals with this goal setting activity. Prioritizing your goals will focus your attention and effort on the most important goals for you.

Set SMART goals to maximize goal setting succcess

SMART goals is an acronym for maximizing your chances of goal setting success.

Your SMART long term goals are made up of many smaller details. Research suggests that to maximize goal setting success, you need a combination of short and long-term goals.

This is one area that people often come unstuck in their goal setting plan. Often software can be beneficial as it goal setting software emphasizes a plan and then provides the tools to work your plan.

If you can picture a ladder with the top step being the achievement of your long term goal.

If you can picture a ladder, with the top step being the achievement of your long term goal.

Each step on the ladder can be thought of as one of your short-term goals. As you progress up the ladder, you complete each short-term goal which moves you closer to your ultimate success.

It can be easy to lose sight of your long term goal, so it is really important to set short-term goals that keep you focused on your lifetime plan.

Use this free goal setting template to create your short-term goals.

Plan your work and work your plan

Now it is time to plan your work and then work your plan with a downloadable Action Plan.

An action plan shows you how to build your short-term goals into daily objectives that you can start to achieve today.

Instill daily habits of success

By creating a To Do List you now start to build your Action Plan items into your daily schedule. A To Do List is a tried and tested way of becoming more efficient and getting on top of what you need to do.

The development of an action plan can be done as above, however,a less cumbersome and more easy way is to use software. See the benefits of goal setting software if this interests you.

Dealing with changing priorities and common difficulties

With the passage of time, your priorities and circumstances may change. Also, you may find that there are obstacles and difficulties to achieving your goals. It is important to be able to change your goal setting plan

Research on athletes and top business people shows that by evaluating and reviewing their goal setting plan regularly increases their chances of goal setting success.

One of the benefits of reviewing your goals regularly is that you can avoid common goal setting difficulties.

The power of the subconscious can also influence goal setting success. Click here for more information on the influence of the subconscious on goal setting.

Often inspirational quotes can aptly describe your values and beliefs. Use these inspirational goal setting quotes to provide clarity and harness your motivation.

Related pages

• A goal setting plan is also beneficial for children, promoting self-confidence and developing life skills.
• Enroll in our free free goal setting course which I use with elite athletes, business professionals, and students to focus and organize their effort and time around what is important in their life.
• Be a source of inspiration and motivation to others and share your goal setting ideas with others