Goal Setting - Long, Medium and Short Term Goals

Goal Setting - Long, Medium and Short Term Goals (Andrew Collings)

Most experts agree that anything can be achieved through goal setting. However, if you are like most people, you may have tried a goal setting program in the past and not succeeded. You may have set goals in a very happy and possibly inebriated state on New Years Eve and promised yourself that this is going to be the year you will achieve your goals - however by the end of the year the goals have not been achieved, and the list you set on new years eve is nowhere to be found.

Today dear reader, we are going to explore goal setting and share a goal setting secret that has been used by successful individuals for generations. A system that with only an hour or so a week, you will be achieving your goals in no time.

Goal setting generally consists of writing down goals and revisiting them. In order to achieve their goals successful people take this further. They have four to five main generic goals in their lives and break these down into more achievable components and goals. There program is broken down into five components for you to use as detailed below:

Long Term Goals (eg 7 - 15 years): At this level the goals are more generic and generally deal with four key areas of your life, for example, Health, Financial, Family and Social. A goal at this level under financial may be to have a net worth of $10million dollars.

Yearly Goals: These goals are written generically but within the scope of a one year time frame. The goals again contribute to the four or five aspects of your life (studies have shown that four to five areas achieves the most success). Ask yourself what you are going to have to do in the next year to achieve your goals. For example, under the above financial goal, you may state that you have to increase your net wealth by $100k. To do this you may decide that setting up your own side business is the way to go. As such, your yearly goal would be to set up a side business (in a certain field), that builds $100k worth of wealth. A good number of yearly goals is around 8-10.

Monthly Goals: We are now starting to get into the specifics of goal settings. This is where you provide the details of how you are going to achieve your yearly goals. Ascertain what you would have to do each month to achieve the goals.

Weekly Goals: Weekly is similar to monthly specific goals. Again write what you will have to achieve each week to meet your monthly goals.

Daily Goal and to do list: This is the base level of goal setting, and is the most important. This is where you take action. When starting your day, look at your 7-15 year goals, your yearly goals, your monthly goals and your weekly goals. Write a list of what you will need to do today to move yourself closer to your goal. On your to do list, highlight the key tasks that you will need to complete today. Focus on these tasks first.

And that the system in a nutshell. To recap, Develop 7-15 year goals (around four) that are a sentence each. Develop yearly goals (around 8-10) that sit under your four main goals (a few paragraphs each). Write what you will need to do each month to achieve your 8 - 10 goals). Write what you will need to achieve each week to achieve your monthly goals. Write a "to do list" at the start of each day, after reading all of your other goals. Highlight the activities on your "to do list" that will bring you closer to achieving your goals and do these first.

The system is successful because it first ascertains what you want to achieve in your life, and then provides specific goals, first at a larger time frame and then more specific to help you achieve your life time goals.

If you just write down what you want to achieve (eg have $1million in a bank account) without ascertaining the reasons why you want this, then it is more likely that your goal will come unstuck.

Good luck with your goal setting!!!