Smarter Goal SettingInformation tips and resources for all your goal setting and self improvement needs

Ask one hundred people to define quality of life, and you’re liable to get one hundred different answers. Part of the variation in expressing quality of life surely is that people place emphasis on different things. For some people, having fulfilling relationships with others is key. Some people find that reaching professional goals is especially significant. Within cultures as a whole, as well, there tend to be experiences that are expressed as being inherently indicative of a high quality of life: exciting life experiences, friendships, good physical health, etc.

Another way to think of quality of life however may simply be the presence of ego satisfaction. The individual who seems to have the things they personally believe are significant may feel contented. The person lacking things they believe are important may see their lives as inadequate. This raises the question of whether pursuing ego desires is a worthwhile endeavor. Generally speaking, in Western civilizations achieving ego desires is celebrated. The person who consistently fulfills his or her ego desires is often seen in Western culture as a success; and on the contrary, the person who has a poor record of seeing their ego desires achieved may be thought of as a failure.

It is not absolutely accepted however that ego desires are something to be pursued. Some belief systems in fact consider the ego to be almost clueless as to what in life is genuinely beneficial and worthwhile. Hooponopono is a process that considers the ego to be nearly entirely inept at understanding and interpreting life meaning. In ho’oponopono then a significant importance is placed on not allowing ego desires to direct one’s personal pursuits. Practitioners of ho’oponopono believe that true contentment is achieved, and only achieved, through consciously making a connection to higher understanding.

Though ho’oponopono may sound rather complex, it’s actually a quite simple process. It’s a near certainty that anyone with the desire to can engage the ho’oponopono method. As things stand today awareness of ho’oponopono is spreading remarkably quickly, and more and more people are making practice of the method a regular part of their lives. Find out more about the ho’oponopono method at Need Help.

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Living a well balanced life is the target of the majority of people it is the key to achieving personal and professional goal setting and success in your career. A question needs to be asked, what is meant by a balanced life, whilst it is true that goal setting is usually the domain of your career especially those in business to live a balanced life means setting goals in every part of your life business and personal. In fact those who set goals in each area of their lives have greater life satisfaction than those who only set career goals thereby decreasing their odds of having a happy life.

Many people need to discover how to write goals and set out a goal setting plan so that they can achieve balanced living by reaching their goals.

You may have come across the term SMART Goals standing for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time related goals. Whilst this is a fairly successful format for those who are very familiar with goal setting it can prove to be complicated for people who do not know how to set goals. Setting Specifi; Measurable and Attainable goals is my way of setting goals and I recommend this formula to you.

Are you aware that you set goals every day of your life, for everyone makes decisions as they {move through the day# are faced with different daily tasks}, a decision can only be made by a goal setting process. You think of something you want, work out if you think you can do it, and take action to attain it, that is a goal setting process. {Obviously there are a few factors in the process that require expanding.# Of course you could elaborate some points.}

To get a balanced life you need to write goals for each section of your life – I call this the TOWER OF LIFE. So let us first identify the floors in the tower that will benefit from personal goal setting.

I want you to draw a Building that is like a tower with six floors and has three windows on each floor; I told you goal setting was complicated!
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On the first floor (the ground floor if you are not in the USA) in the left hand window write the words Physical and Health. On the next floor up write Mental and Educational. The next floor up write Family and Home; on the next Spiritual and Ethical; then Social and Cultural finally on the top floor Financial and Career.

In the windows alongside each of you categories give yourself a mark as to where you believe you are in relation to that category. To do this you need to ask yourself some questions, for example working downwards in the window next to where you wrote Financial and Career ask yourself questions such as; “Do you enjoy your work? Do you feel you make an effective contribution? Have you reached your full potential? Have you achieved a good standard of living?”

Mark yourself against these questions on a scale of 1 to 10 1 being the lowest and 10 the highest now you rate yourself against these questions.

Apply the same process for the other floors in your tower of life:-

Social and Cultural ” Have you got a friend you can have a serious discussion about your life without feeling uncomfortable; Do you have interests outside of your career – Sport; Theatre; Family?”

Spiritual and Ethical “ Are you aware of your Core Beliefs – these make you what you are; What is your relationship with religion, or do you accept the idea of an architect of the universe and life itself. Remember your religion can be based around an invisible deity or a god within yourself?”

Family and Home: “Is your family life the way you want it, have you achieved your dreams?”

Mental and Educational: “Are you still trying to learn something every day; Do you invest in your education on an ongoing basis?”

Physical and Health: “Are you satisfied with your current state of health; Are you the correct weight for your size and build; Are you fit enough to do the things you want to do?”

Now that you have asked yourself this type of question and others you may add, and marked yourself from on the scale of 1 to 10 make a note of all the areas where improvement can be made I suggest where your score is less than 5, if you have none below 5 then pick the lowest score and check that you have been totally honest with yourself.

Now you need to look at those areas where you could improve your score and set yourself objectives to raise the score towards ten where you can. As you do this and achieve your goals no matter how small you will begin to enjoy life satisfaction and bring your life into true harmony. Repeat this goal setting process on a regular basis for as you get to ten on your scale you will think of improvements you can make even when you reach ten and the process starts again.

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It always amazes me when people say that they have set goals but fail to write them down. There are those who do not write out their goals as they see it as an unnecessary extra task when they know what they want, so they believe. Well for a start most of us have what is termed motorised memories, secondly the majority of the population are visual people they recall more of what they see than what the hear or feel, there is a reason for this which I will mention shortly, so stay with me, it is also a major factor in goal achievement. This is the best step if you do it this way, as you write out your goals enjoy the feeling of having achieved them, experience the difference it has made to your life. Read on please this will become clearer later.

Then another vital area is to set goals for each area of your life not just professional goals but also social goals, by that I mean setting goals for family, physical well-being and relaxation. True life balance means that you do not leave one rat race for another, at least working nine to five or whatever meant you shut the office door, working for yourself at home can encroach on quality family time do not allow that to happen. Your family will support you but getting a work to life balance is essential for more than just keeping your relationship together.

Finally the most important part of goal setting, which is why I said that writing your goals out was very important is vizualization. Remember I said that in order to set good goals you need to know where you are going to end up before thinking about how to get there, this is where vizualization plays its part, because you have not got the thing you want you have to vizualize what it will be like when you do have it, how will your life change. You cannot write anything out on paper unless you have a clear image in your mind before doing so, so do you see how that very act of preparing to write out your goals brings a sharper truer image to your mind than if you did not write them out. Do this right and you are more than half way to achieve your goals. Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe he will achieve so says Napoleon Hill and everything before you bears witness to those words all physical itmes started as a thought which was believed.

If you do not believe that you can use vizualization just try these little exercises. Stop for a moment, if I say the word ‘elephant’, what do you think of, the word or that familiar large grey animmal with a long trunk, I suggest the latter as we think in pictures. Remember the last time you went on holiday and you studied the brochure depicting where you were to travel to, did you not also imagine scenes that would take place that did not feature in the brochure, they were not in the form of words but images. When you read a book your imagination paints pictures of the scene that is being described. We use vizualization every day of our lives.

I confess I love showing people how to use vizualization in their lives and have spent the last 25 years doing so.

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Here comes a new year with new opportunities for everyone to assert themselves in any field of activity and in any area of life. 2009 apparently is a year that does not promise too much because of the world financial and economic crisis we are already experiencing. Yet, people won’t stop setting personal and professional goals because of the recession, on the contrary, this is the right moment to think positive and work hard to reach our aims.

On the one hand, personal goals should be ever-present in our life even despite this coming year with its gloomy perspective. First of all, may we all preserve the tranquility of our spirits and the harmony of our homes. For this to come true, let us remember that we should remain the same caring persons full of love and understanding. If kindness is a sore point in one’s life, then perhaps it is time now to manifest a little more consideration and support towards our family members especially if we notice that the professional goals of our beloved ones are in no way going to be achieved this year.

If career is disappointing, then family and friends should at least feel that they are successful within the family realm so that self-confidence remains at a decent level. Family, health and job elements are all inter-related, ignoring one or suffering disappointment in a category will inevitably affect the others. Good shape and wellness of each individual represent a goal that should be maintained no matter what, and action should be taken in that direction.

On the other hand, we may expect our professional goals not to be so well met this year. But even so, the career realm should not lack goals. Keep professional goals a bit more humble or at least realistic in relation to the position you find yourself in. Success will surely appear even if lots of efforts will be required in the direction of achieving goals.

Examples of professional goals include to get higher on the hierarchical ladder within your company, to show more commitment to the tasks and thus get a raise, to get more responsibilities and chances to learn more and thus grow professionally, to change one’s job for a better one, and so on. If these professional goals aim too high and you ignore the recession from planning, you might become exposed to exactly the opposite situation while avoiding precisely that which may be considered one of the smartest professional goals for 2009. All this being said, may you enjoy all the luck in the world!

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The SMART goal setting concept utilizes a mnemonic technique to assist people in their goal setting behavior. If you want a quick, simple way to reach success, use this device to accomplish your personal, financial, and professional goals.

To illustrate this concept, an example will be used. Amy wishes to stop smoking. She decided to use the SMART technique to set and achieve her goal.

S = Specific

The language of your goals must be specific.

Amy’s goal is too vague. She needs to answer the questions what, why, and how when defining her goal. To make it specific she could state that she will quit smoking, because she cares about her health and wants to be a better role model for her children. She’s going to quit smoking by utilizing the patch and nicotine gum. Also, she plans on occupying her time and hands by joining a knitting group.

M = Measurable

Goals need to be measurable which means they need to be number specific.

At this point, Amy’s goal is not measurable. To make it measurable she would have to set goals which include measurements such as, “I plan on cutting down to one pack of cigarettes a day by the end of the first month.”

A = Attainable

Your goal needs to be something that you can achieve, and you need to have confidence in yourself. If you believe that you’re going to fail from the beginning, then you’re more likely to fail. Confidence is one of the significant factors according to goal setting theory.

Amy set a goal to quit smoking in six months. She has outlined a detailed plan on how she is going to quit smoking within her time frame. Currently, she is smoking two packs a day, so she sets short-term, attainable goals. The first goal is to consult with her primary care physician. The second short-term goal is to cut back to one pack a day by the end of the first month, half a pack a day by the end of the second month, one fourth of a pack by the finish of the third month, and two cigarettes a day by the end of the fourth month. At the conclusion of the fifth month, Amy plans to solely rely on nicotine patches and gum. By the end of the sixth month Amy plans on being free from relying on and using any substance with nicotine.

R = Relevant

Each short-term goal needs to relate to the long-term goal and be relevant to the participants.

If one of Amy;s short-term goals was to spend more time with her children, it wouldn’t be relevant to this long-term goal. That would have to be a separate goal.

T = Timely

The goals need to have a set end date. When do you wish to finish the goal? How long will it realistically take for you to be successful?

Amy makes her goal timely by stating that she will quit smoking cigarettes with six months, so her time frame is clear.

About the Author: Arina Nikitina is the author of the goal setting tutorial “How to Set and Achieve a Goal”. Get 27 proven techniques, 9 worksheets, and step-by-step success plan here: www.how-to-set-and-achieve-a-goal.com/ebook.shtml

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