Developing the Correct Mindset for
Writing Your Goals
by Adrian McMaster
Writing your goals can be an intimidating project because it forces you to truly think about what you want to accomplish and make an action plan that details how you will set out to achieve each goal. In order to write their goals, many people need to develop a more positive mindset. Developing a positive mindset can not only help you develop reasonable goals, it can also help you change other areas of your life. This can lead to increasing your ability to meet your goals and achieve success on your own terms.
The first thing you need to do when writing your goals is change your mindset about how a goal should be written. Many people write goals like “make more money” and “work out more.” The problem with these types of goals is that they are too general. You need to develop a mindset that allows you to develop specific goals. Developing specific goals makes them more solid and can help motivate you to do what’s necessary to achieve them. More specific goals would be to “make $5,000 more per year” or “work out four times per week.”
Your mindset about writing goals should also change to include how measurable the goals are. When you write generalized goals such as “lose weight” or “spend more time with family,” you are not giving yourself a way to measure your progress. Good goals should be measurable; that is, they can be measured in terms of time, amount earned, or other measurements. Better goals than “lose weight” and spend more time with family” would be “lose 40 pounds” or “spend two hours per week with family.” This makes it easier to track your progress as you work to achieve your girls.
Developing the correct mindset for writing your goals has another important component. This is the ability to separate realistic goals from unrealistic goals. The whole point of the goal writing process is to develop a plan of action that motivates you to achieve the goals you have developed. If you develop goals that are unrealistic, it will be very difficult to motivate yourself. For example, “earn $5 million in one year” is attainable only for a very select few individuals. A more realistic goal would be to “earn $50,000 in one year” or to “earn a $5,000 bonus.” Having goals that are realistic will help you arm yourself with the tools necessary to achieve the goals you have developed.
Another part of having the correct mindset for writing your goals is being able to develop timely goals. “Earn more money” or “lose weight” are not specific and they are also not timely. Setting timely goals means that you give yourself a specific time period in which you plan to achieve those goals. For example, “lose 40 pounds by January 1” is a specific and timely goal. Having timely goals allows you to track your progress and can motivate you to put forth the effort necessary to achieve each goal you have set for yourself. Combining these four types of goals into one specific, measurable, realistic, and timely goal is the best way to motivate yourself to achieve your goals.
Writing your goals down can be difficult, especially if you are unsure about how to write goals that you can achieve. Remember the principles of setting specific, measurable, realistic, and timely goals and you can cut down on the generic goals you may be used to and start working with goals that are more motivating. All of the time and effort you put into writing your goals will result in a solid action plan that you can follow to achieve your goals and develop personal success.
Keywords: goal setting, goal set, personal goal setting
Adrian and Brenda can show you that anything is possible if you get your mind set balanced. They came together after some very life changing experiences.Their site, www.lead-a-powerful-life.com is for you.to get the proper mindset to take your life wherever you would like it to go.
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Copyright 2006 Adrian McMaster