Everyone makes goals at some point whether you realize you are or not. We all say things such as, “One day, I’m going to do ______.” Yes, this is a goal. In your head, you’ve decided that you, at some point in your life, are going to be someone or do something specific. As a counselor, I’ve come to realize the importance of setting specific, attainable, and measurable goals. Without goals, what is our motivation? What are we working towards? Goals help us from becoming apathetic, lifeless robots that just go through the motions day in and day out. Goals bring life!
Here are some pointers to creating working goals:
1. Know yourself. Create goals that are realistic for you and your personality.
2. Make them distinct. Create a goal providing a specific time frame as well as the steps you will take in order to reach it. Specific steps are important so that you don’t become complacent along the way.
3. Vary your goals. Make short-term and long-term goals, social and career goals, emotional and spiritual goals.
4. Write them down! I don’t care how good you think your memory is, if you don’t write your goals down with all the specific steps, chances are, you will not reach that goal as quickly or as efficiently as if you wrote them down with checkpoints along the way.
5. Tell someone! Share your goal with a friend, coworker, or family member who will hold you accountable and ask you where you are in achieving your goal from time to time.
Goals require discipline–a word I’m not too fond of, but a subject I will nonetheless touch on in a later post. I encourage you to set a new goal today and start moving forward in this journey called life!
And always remember…
