In the journey to the birthing your dreams of course knowing your dreams are important, but that’s only half the battle. After you’ve figured out the dream that you’re going after, there is a crucial step you must take. That crucial step is goal setting. Many of you may know what goal setting is, but for those of you that don’t. Goal setting is basically a clearly written desire. It’s been said by Brian Tracy that “people with clear written goals will accomplish far more in a shorter period of time than people without them could imagine”. I don’t know what it is but it’s something about writing that goal down and keeping it before your eyes, that makes you want to take action. I guess you can say setting goals are the action steps to achieving your dreams. I don’t want to sound misleading by having you think that all you have to do is write them down and they’ll happen, of course there will be work involved. By reaching a series of small goals your dreams can become a reality.
So let’s get into a few steps for setting goals. The steps for this process may be different for others, but this is the process that I use. The steps for setting goals are:
1. Be Specific- When creating your goals it’s a must that you be specific. For example, If your goal is to go
to school what school and what will you go to school for. It’s just much more doable when you are specific
with your goals. I mean if you aren’t specific there’s no telling what you’ll get. I remember a few years
ago I was making spaghetti for my sister and I told her the ingredients to get but I must have not been
very specific on the kind of sauce to get because she bought the sauce that she uses(which I wasn’t fond
of). Since I wasn’t specific I had to use the sauce that she brought and my recipe wasn’t exactly the way I
like it. So now anytime I make spaghetti for anyone I am sure to be specific on the sauce to buy. The same
goes for our goals, be specific on what you want or you may get less than what you expected.
2. Write it down- Writing your goal down is a vital factor to achieving your goal. There have been times in
the past where I have talked about things I wanted to do but never wrote them down and they almost never
came to pass, and if they did it took longer than I expected. I don’t know what it is about writing down
the goals that makes it more effective but I know it works.
3. Set a deadline-Give yourself a deadline to meet your goal(a realistic deadline). If you set a deadline for
a goal that isn’t realistic you will set yourself up to fail.
4. Keep it before your eyes- Once you have created your goal be sure to keep it before your eyes often. One of
my favorite ways to do this is with a vision board(I will talk more about vision boards in an upcoming
post). Keeping your goal before your eyes can simply be a picture of a representation of your goal on the
refrigerator, or even photo slideshow on your computer screensaver. Either way the visual representation of
your goal will be pivotal in achieving your goal.
5. Tell someone- I find that telling someone of the goal you’re trying to achieve keeps you accountable.
6. Create a plan of action- All of the previous steps are great but without a plan it may be a bit difficult
to achieve your goals. When creating a plan of action to achieving your goals the best way to accomplish
this is one step at a time. I love the saying “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time”. The same
goes for your goals. Break the goal into small steps and get to achieving those dreams! You have what it
takes to make it happen.
Remember you are a Worthy Woman!