Setting life goals

Setting life goals and objectives is an important part of living a successful life. It gives a framework for deciding a path of action, assisting us in preparing for any situation that may arise. As Ashworth points out, goals become the future state that we try to obtain (1990). Without a good or defined goal setting, an individual is likely to have difficulty managing everyday tasks or projecting future events. Personal goals, according to Eisele (2012), benefit in four major ways. These include providing direction and advice, aiding planning, motivating and inspiring individuals, and assisting with performance control and evaluation. Goals help us realize where we are going to and how to get there.

In many cases, I set very louse goals, an aspect that requires me to adopt strategic goal setting approaches to ensure I effectively achieve my goals. In the process, I have learned that not all goal setting strategies turn to be effective. As a result, learning to effectively set the right goals as well as the best ways to achieve them requires patience, takes time, and needs guidance. Thus, I will adopt the following goals setting strategies to help me achieve my goals.

Goals Setting

Even though this may seem like an obvious step, the essentiality for identifying concrete goals needs not to be overstated. I need to set measurable goals that will motivate me to keep moving forward. Once a goal is set, I should ask myself the step I need to take to ensure the goal is achieved. Setting concrete goals will also require me to document them and review them from time to time with the aim of helping me ensure that I remain on track in my daily activities.

Creating Systems to Support My Goals

According to Earle (2010), we all need to implement systems that can help us continually progress once we set our goals. The same study denotes that goals without a proper supporting system that can drive their progress only lead to failure as the goals are bound to remain just like documentation without reality. In other words, failing to create daily or weekly systems that can keep me on track will lead to failure to achieve the set goals. As a result, I will ensure I establish an entire pipeline of prospects defined on specific procedures that will help me achieve my life goals.

Aligning My Resource Expenditures with My Goals

In many cases, we fail to achieve our objectives due to failures in planning our resources. To effectively achieve my set goals, I will ensure that I align my resources expenditure such as finance, time, knowledge, and skills in line with the goals. For instance, achieving my deployment while serving in the army has come with lots of pressure, as I need to be flexible to ensure I also perform well in my classwork. As a result, I have to manage and spend my time effectively in ensuring I focus much on my studies whenever I get the little opportunity.

Taking Action

In many cases, people are good at making promises that they will achieve something at the end of a certain time but fail to achieve the results since the plan remains locked in the drawers. To effectively achieve my life goals, I need to take action in meeting the daily or weekly objectives. These will, in the long run, contribute to the target results, an aspect that cannot be achieved when I continue procrastinating. Time is ever moving and the more we wait, the more other urgent issues catch up with us hence leading to the failure of our goals as our attention is divided into focusing on other issues.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is essential for me to understand that challenging goals motivate the most as they give us a measure of creating a feedback that makes more sense. Setting more challenging goals will thus help me to achieve more successful feedback. However, I should ensure that the goals are specific, balanced, and attainable. In the end, there is also a need for evaluation with the aim of identifying what has been achieved, evaluate the challenges faced along the way, as well as the effective strategic solutions that can be adapted to cope with the challenges for a better future. As a result, I will ensure that I only set realistic goals that are specific and at the same time take action to achieve the set goals and bring them to reality.

References

Ashworth, D. N. (1990). The Effects of Three Participative Goal Setting Strategies on Task Goal Attributes and Performance. Australian Journal of Management (University Of New South Wales), 15(1), 39.

Earley, P. C. (2010). Comparative Analysis of Goal-Setting Strategies across Cultures. Journal of Applied Psychology, 72(4), 658-665.

Eisele, P. (2012). Improving Performance in Groups: Effects of Two Different Goal-Setting Strategies and Feedback on Brainstorming Performance. Baltic Journal Of Psychology, 13(1), 45-57.