Below are the links to a series of posts on goals and goal setting.

If you haven’t got time to read them all now, go ahead and bookmark this page, so you can read them at your leisure, at a time that suits you.

Goal Setting Introduction

Have you ever wanted to accomplish something but been unsure how to get started? (Frustration!)

Maybe you set a goal and then couldn’t figure out the right steps to take? (Soul destroying!)

Or you established a goal, started taking action and and stopped too soon because you weren’t seeing the results straight away. (Mmm!)

Maybe you’re like many people and leave goal setting to others, as it’s not really for you it’s for them! (read this)

Okay, many people aren’t that keen on sitting down with pen, paper, pens to write their goals.

Or creating a vision board to pin on the fridge with magnets. It’s not something we’ve been taught, this goal setting ‘stuff’.

And yet…

You’re Good at Setting Goals, You Do It Everyday

From the time you open your blurry eyes, until the time you go to bed, you’re goal setting.

You’re deciding what to wear, what to eat, where to go, times to travel, where to shop, who to see, best route to work, when to phone people, when to watch tele.

These are easy goals, I’ll bet you probably don’t even think of them as ‘goals’, and the fact you aren’t paying attention to them makes them simple, so how can we make goals for our life just as brain and emotion friendly?

The Missing Gaps or Wide Open Fields

Sometimes goal setting is like trying to find your way out of a very large (and very confusing) maze or it can be like standing in a field with nothing to see or work towards for hundreds of miles.

Too High or Too Low?

Goals that are set too high are one of the common reasons why many ‘give up’ too soon, or (more accurately) lose motivation. The same can be said for goals that are set too low, again no motivation to achieve them because they are so simple.

So where’s the balance?

My opinion on setting goals is they should be out of reach, but not out of sight.

Does that mean the large goals are not possible?

No way. As you successfully reach the smaller goals, you keep moving forward until what was the ‘impossible’ becomes the possible.

For example, a client I worked with wanted to be a Social Worker. Not impossible, by any means.

However they had no qualifications, hadn’t worked for twenty years, had no experience working with people, and a criminal conviction. The goal they set was to become a Social Worker, and they had applied to colleges and kept getting knocked back time and time again. By the time I met them, (3 years since they had they set the goal) they had given up.

The goal they set was the ‘far off distant’ goal, but they couldn’t ‘see’ how it could happen. They had lost the motivation and developed the ‘what’s the point anyway‘ attitude, mainly because of the rejection they had received.

Break Them Down Into Do-Able Chunks

I asked them to break down the goal. And made it realistic or more do-able. They added to the big goal, ‘little’ goals such as: qualifications (they attended three evening classes a week for a year), volunteering (spending time with the client group they wanted to work with, again for over a year), getting professional help to deal with the criminal conviction.

All in all it took them another year and a half.

Yeah, it’s true, some goals take time!

The motivation was sparked and maintained by focusing on the small goals, carrying them through, enjoying them, seeing how they could apply what they were learning in the years to come, they had a visual of where they were heading.

That makes sense doesn’t it? So, what are your huge unbelieveable goals (or HUGGS as we coaches like to call them :-)

Goal Setting Made Simple

You know where you are, and you know where you want to be, but there is a gap.

A space between the current reality and the vision of what can become.

Think of goal setting as a long journey.

There may be an easy route for some of your goals, however you may find that you need to make detours every now and then, to get the resources or information you need before you can set off confidently on your way. And that’s okay.

Roadmaps and Guides

Assume you were making a visit to a friends town. You could easily get there I have no doubt. But what if you actually didn’t know where you were? You had no idea the country, town or house you were in. You’d have a pretty tough time getting to your friends, wouldn’t you?

Goal setting is the perfect opportunity to work out where you’re at, first.

Following The Maps of Others

In life it’s so easy to ‘drive’ along others maps, we have somehow ended up joining someone else as a passenger on their route to their goals. Nothing wrong with that, if you’re in a relationship, I have no doubt you share a few goals for example where you want to live.

But we can get caught up in others ‘maps’ that we sometimes can forget that we too have roads to travel and places that we want to visit.

It’s okay to be the driver, and it’s okay to be a passenger, and it’s okay to stop and let others drive off on their own, encourgage them.

Okay, with all that said, here’s a few posts to help you kick start the goal setting.

Photo Credits: Ladybird SarnieBill (thank you) | Targets HikingArtist