How to Set Achievable Goals 

Goal setting is the road to success. They can lead to progression both in your profession and you day to day life in general.  When you are comfortable in creating your own goals and you tirelessly work to attain them not only boost your confidence but also helps you lead a happy and fulfilling and more meaningful life. 

Setting a goal or rather goals is very simple but the thing that matters most if you want to be successful in achieving your goal is taking action.  Now, the accomplishment of a goal will depend on several factors, but there are some things you can take care of.

Planning your goals with these things in mind can greatly enhance the chances of their being brought to fruition. The following is a list of the things that you should consider.

Define Goal That Is Practial and Meaningful

Keep the goals in mind as well as jot them down in a piece of paper. By only jotting them down in a paper, you will forget the goals or you will lose the motivation to reach your goal. While keeping them in mind will give you the motivation every day. 

Firstly, you have to consider if the goal you are setting is practical or not. Is it realizable at all? Are you setting something for your team and yourself that you know is full of constraints and will lead into a needless exertion of your people and resources?

When you are setting a goal, you have to ensure that it meets your purposes. You have to see that it is accomplishable. It is all right if it is a difficult goal to achieve—that should not deter you—but you should make sure that it is a practical goal to accomplish. 

Ultimately, you have to see what purpose your goal accomplishment will serve. Why are you chasing it anyway? How well does it fit with your core values, and how will it take you and your organization further? What prospects does it entail? These things give a very clear idea of how much effort you should put into a particular goal and what you can do to achieve it. 

The Timeframe

 Are you giving it too short a time? Make a clear analysis of when you want your goals to be accomplished vis-à-vis the time you have with you. See that you are not putting a lot of pressure on your people or your resources. You have to give it a good deal of laxity so that optimal results are obtained.

Make Action Plan

Break down your achievement goal into small actionable goals. This will make the process fair, accurate and easier for you to achieve.

Track Your Success

Consider reviewing your goals from time to time so that you do not lose focus and you are on track to attaining your goals.  All the major goals can be broken in to small bits so that you are able to properly visualize and see yourself achieving them. Breaking them in to bits also makes them manageable. Also as priorities change consider also changing your goals so that they augur well with priorities in life.

  The SMART Theory of Goal Setting

We like to abide by theories; they put a concrete spin on things. They make difficult tasks seem achievable. Even for your goal setting practices, there is a wonderful theory that you can use. This theory, popularly known as SMART, is a strategy you can implement to set goals that you can easily achieve. There are five aspects to this theory; each of the letters of SMART stands for one aspect of it.

S for Specific

 The first aspect of goal setting is that you should be specific. Do not set something ambiguous which can be easily misconstrued. For example, “I want to become rich” is a very vague goal which can never be objective. For someone, earning $5,000 a month means they are rich, while another person may not think they are rich even they have earned a million dollars. Instead, the goal should have been more specific like, “I will earn a million dollars this year.” That’s just an example; you get the point.

M for Measurable

 You should be able to measure the success of your goals. In the above example, you can easily measure the success of your goal, because you have revolved it around a number. Other examples are “I will shed 5 pounds this month”, “I will read 2 chapters of this book every day”, “I will add to my wardrobe by 1 new dress each fortnight” and so on.

A for Attainable

 Though it is all right to aim for the moon, you should be practical about your goals. You should stay within attainable limits. It is important that your goals should not go beyond your individual capacity too much. It is all right to challenge yourself a bit, but if you go too far, you are only going to lose your motivation and give up.

R for Realistic

 If you aim for something like being the first person to live on Mars, your goal achievement won’t be too easy. And if you set something like you want to meet an alien today, it is probably not going to happen. Be realistic when you are setting goals. They should be something that can be achieved, but are just out of your reach for the moment.

T for Time-Sensitive

Give time great importance when you are setting a goal. Everything revolves around the time factor. If you achieve in a year what you needed in a month, the goal is probably not going to help you much.

Hope you find this article helpful. Go and Get It, BUT DON\’T FORGET TO BELIEVE IN YOURSELF AND TO ENJOY THE PROCESS.