Goal
Goal
Goal
Goals
Specific Measurable Attainable Realistic Timely
Specific: A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must answer the six W questions: *Who: *What: *Where: *When: *Which: *Why: Who is involved? What do I want to accomplish? Identify a location. Establish a time frame. Identify requirements and constraints. Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.
EXAMPLE: A general goal would be, Get in shape. But a specific goal would say, Join a health club and workout 3 days a week.
Measurable - Establish concrete criteria for measuring progress toward the attainment of each goal you set. When you measure your progress, you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement that spurs you on to continued effort required to reach your goal. To determine if your goal is measurable, ask questions such as How much? How many? How will I know when it is accomplished?
Attainable When you identify goals that are most important to you, you begin to figure out ways you can make them come true. You develop the attitudes, abilities, skills, and financial capacity to reach them. You begin seeing previously overlooked opportunities to bring yourself closer to the achievement of your goals. You can attain most any goal you set when you plan your steps wisely and establish a time frame that allows you to carry out those steps. Goals that may have seemed far away and out of reach eventually move closer and become attainable, not because your goals shrink, but because you grow and expand to match them. When you list your goals you build your self-image. You see yourself as worthy of these goals, and develop the traits and personality that allow you to possess them.
Realistic- To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. But be sure that every goal represents substantial progress. A high goal is frequently easier to reach than a low one because a low goal exerts low motivational force. Some of the hardest jobs you ever accomplished actually seem easy simply because they were a labor of love.
Timely A goal should be grounded within a time frame. With no time frame tied to it theres no sense of urgency. If you want to lose 10 lbs, when do you want to lose it by? Someday wont work. But if you anchor it within a timeframe, by May 1st, then youve set your unconscious mind into motion to begin working on the goal. Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Additional ways to know if your goal is realistic is to determine if you have accomplished anything similar in the past or ask yourself what conditions would have to exist to accomplish this goal. T can also stand for Tangible A goal is tangible when you can experience it with one of the senses, that is, taste, touch, smell, sight or hearing. When your goal is tangible you have a better chance of making it specific and measurable and thus attainable.
Baseball. Youth sports is where I belong, it is where my heart belongs, not on some college diamond where the only thing at stake is a high draft spot. When setting goals it is very important to remember that your goals must be consistent with your values.
2. A goal can not contradict any of your other goals. For example, you cant buy a $750,000 house if your income goal is only $50,000 per year. This is called non-integrated thinking and will sabotage all of the hard work you put into your goals. Non-integrated thinking can also hamper your everyday thoughts as well. We should continually strive to eliminate contradictory ideas from our thinking.
3. Develop goals in the 6 areas of life: Family and Home Financial and Career Spiritual and Ethical Physical and Health Social and Cultural Mental and Educational Setting goals in each area of life will ensure a more balanced life as you begin to examine and change the fundamentals of everyday living. Setting goals in each area of live also helps in eliminating the non-integrated thinking we talked about in the 2nd step.
4. Write your goal in the positive instead of the negative. Work for what you want, not for what you want to leave behind. Part of the reason why we write down and examine our goals is to create a set of instructions for our subconscious mind to carry out. Your subconscious mind is a very efficient tool, it can not determine right from wrong and it does not judge. Its only function is to carry out its instructions. The more positive instructions you give it, the more positive results you will get. Thinking positively in everyday life will also help in your growth as a human being. Dont limit it to goal setting.
5. Write your goal out in complete detail. Instead of writing A new home, write A 4,000 square foot contemporary with 4 bedrooms and 3 baths and a view of the mountain on 20 acres of land. Once again we are giving the subconscious mind a detailed set of instructions to work on. The more information you give it, the more clearer the final outcome becomes. The more precise the outcome, the more efficient the subconscious mind can become. Can you close your eyes and visualize the home I described above? Walk around the house. Stand on the porch off the master bedroom and see the fog lifting off the mountain. Look down at the garden full of tomatoes, green beans and cucumbers. And off to the right is the other garden full of a mums, carnations and roses. Can you see it? So can your subconscious mind.
6. By all means, make sure your goal is high enough. Shoot for the moon, if you miss youll still be in the stars. Earlier I talked about my umpiring goals and how making it to the top level of college umpiring did not mix with my values. Some of you might be saying that Im not setting my goals high enough. Not so. I still have very high goals for my umpiring career at the youth level. My ultimate goal is to be chosen to umpire a Babe Ruth World Series and to do so as a crew chief. If I never make it, everything I do to reach that goal will make me a better umpire and a better person. If I make it, but dont go as a crew chief, then I am still among the top youth umpires in the nation. Shoot for the moon!
7. This is the most important, write down your goals. Writing down your goals creates the roadmap to your success. Although just the act of writing them down can set the process in motion, it is also extremely important to review your goals frequently. Remember, the more focused you are on your goals the more likely you are to accomplish them. Sometimes we realize we have to revise a goal as circumstances and other goals change, much like I did with my umpiring. If you need to change a goal do not consider it a failure, consider it a victory as you had the insight to realize something was different. So your goals are written down. Now what? First of all, unless someone is critical to helping you achieve your goal(s), do not freely share your goals with others. The negative attitude from friends, family and neighbors can drag you down quickly. Its very important that your self-talk (the thoughts in your head) are positive.
Reviewing your goals daily is a crucial part of your success and must become part of your routine. Each morning when you wake up read your list of goals that are written in the positive. Visualize the completed goal, see the new home, smell the leather seats in your new car, feel the cold hard cash in your hands. Then each night, right before you go to bed, repeat the process. This process will start both your subconscious and conscious mind on working towards the goal. This will also begin to replace any of the negative self-talk you may have and replace it with positive self-talk. Every time you make a decision during the day, ask yourself this question, Does it take me closer to, or further from my goal. If the answer is closer to, then youve made the right decision. If the answer is further from, well, you know what to do. If you follow this process everyday you will be on your way to achieving unlimited success in every aspect of your life.