3 Tips For Goal-Setting

Before you decide whether a single goal fits into your goals program, you should work that goal through a process that can help determine whether you should be pursuing this goal at the current time. This can take considerable time but it can save you much time and frustration by eliminating goals that are not for you at this time and helping to identify what you need to focus on now.

1. Target in on your goal: Your goal must be specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. Remember: Some goals must be big and some goals must be long-range.

Significant goals must be broken down into smaller parts to ensure daily accountability. For example, if you want to lose 50 pounds this year, you can break that down to a goal of 4 pounds a month or 1 pound a week and then figure out how many calories you need to cut out or burn off to achieve that weekly weight loss.

2. Identify how you benefit from the goal: People often fail to reach their goals because they concentrate on the costs rather than the benefits. “If I lose the weight,” they reason, “I’ll have to give up this and do that.” Or “If I quit smoking, I know that I’ll gain weight and be miserable and difficult to get along with.”

Instead of concentrating on the negatives, think of the benefits that you’re going to enjoy. As you set goals, make a list of the tangible rewards that will be yours when you reach each goal. Each time you begin to ask yourself whether pursuing a goal is worth the effort, simply take out the list of benefits and read them aloud again.

3. List the obstacles that stand between you and your goal: You need to identify obstacles in order to be realistic and avoid being surprised. People have experienced many times that they had no idea that pursuing such-and-such a goal was going to be so demanding, require so much effort, take so long, and involve so many unexpected pitfalls. Careful planning in advance eliminates much of this disappointment, but you must understand that you can’t always see the roadblocks ahead. That’s why commitment, attitude, responsibility, and focus on the benefits remain constant necessities. Patience is also extremely important. Just remember that by keeping yourself focused on the goal, you can see the benefits and not just the obstacles.

Very few people get excited about obstacles. A mammoth traffic jam when you’re in a big hurry or a bad cold just before a long-planned vacation doesn’t create excitement in your life. Disappointments or setbacks of any kind are seldom viewed with enthusiasm. Yet those very difficulties should generate excitement, if for no other reason than that overcoming obstacles makes you strong and enables you to soar to greater heights.

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Become Successful By Expecting Success

When you plan and prepare carefully, you can legitimately expect to have success in your efforts. When you recognize and develop the winning qualities that you were born with, the winner you were born to be emerges. Although not all your expectations are going to come to pass, you give yourself an infinitely better chance of succeeding by taking the proper steps. Regardless of your goal - losing weight, making more money, etc. - you can expect to achieve your goal if you plan and prepare for it.

You also need to understand that the path from where you are to where you want to be is not always smooth and straight. The reason for the twists and bumps is simple, and it has nothing to do with you. It has more to do with the fact that not everyone is as interested in your success as you are. Some people may accidentally hinder your efforts; others who are in competition with you and have little or no integrity may try to sabotage your efforts.

Keep in mind, though, that when you hit those roadblocks or even reversals, your character, commitment, and attitude are the determining factors in your success. You need to carefully review your plan of action, seek wise counsel, and be particularly careful to feed your mind good information. An optimistic, positive mind is far more likely to come up with creative solutions than a mind that dwells on setbacks and difficulties.

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A Powerful Tool For Success: Conditional Acceptance

Love, acceptance, and approval are the most powerful tools of reinforcing a human being can experience. When an individual has an attitude of partial approval or partial acceptance of others, an attitude of conditional acceptance develops. Statements such as, “I’ll accept you when…,” create hurt, anger, fear, and distrust. When you attach unreasonable conditions within a relationship, your opportunities for accomplishment and enjoyment diminish. An attitude of conditional acceptance creates resistance to healthy communication with others.

When you go to a restaurant and order a full-course dinner are you satisfied with a partial meal when you ordered a complete dinner? Of course not. Settling for being partially accepted as a person is not enough because it doesn’t provide enough emotional and physical nourishment. Conditional acceptance hinders your self-respect and creates resistance toward growth and change. If I allow myself to be partially accepted as a person, or accept others only on a conditional basis, this reduces the trust and comfort needed to achieve effective communication.

There’s no need to place a limit on the amount of love and energy you give or receive. You don’t have to settle for being accepted as a partial person. How often have you heard the statement, “She/he has a great body?” Don’t let anyone reduce you to a bunch of parts - hair, nails, skin, arms, or legs. What about the person’s other qualities, such as being competent, cooperative, conscientious, genuine, honest, faithful, forgiving, judicious, noble, persistent, sensitive, spirited, straight-forward, well-adjusted, thoughtful - to only mention a few? When you’re not appreciated as a whole human being, you become discouraged and your self esteem and confidence suffer.

Start accepting and confirming yourself as a total physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual person. Start behaving and believing that you are unique, a “crown of creation.” When you expect more of yourself you’ll get more! When you communicate through a negative self-image your message lacks confidence and determination. Conditional acceptance breeds mistrust, fear, and rejection. This condition also creates damaging self-talk, decreasing self esteem and producing non-harmonious relationships.

Overcoming resistance is difficult when one is discouraged and demotivated. Taking risks is not a high priority for the person who experiences conditional acceptance. When the person is disheartened and discouraged they may say, “Why trouble myself with anything? With my luck I was bound to fail. I’m not getting anywhere.” These statements are signs of frustration and hopelessness. Conditional acceptance creates discouragement and resistance toward change and growth. Unconditional acceptance creates encouragement, warmth, and understanding in relationships. Resistance to growth is eliminated when one is unconditionally accepted.

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Creating Realistic Obtainable Goals

The more effectively you can measure a goal, the more likely you are to complete the goal because progress itself is a tremendous encourager. Even though you can’t see progress by the day, you will by the end of the week - or certainly by the end of the month.

Many people set goals that are completely out of reach, whereas others set them so low that they represent no challenge. Both approaches are unrealistic. Many people knowingly set impossible goals so that they have a built-in excuse for not achieving those goals. This practice is clearly self-defeating. You must have a realistic chance of reaching a goal, combined with a belief that you will reach it, in order for it to have long-range motivational impact.

For example, because weight loss is on the minds of more than two thirds of the people in the United States - and well it should be - people often fall victim to empty promises, such as “lose 30 pounds in 30 days without getting hungry and without exercising!” That goal isn’t realistic. You didn’t gain that weight in a month, and you’re not going to lose it in a month. Permanent weight loss comes only with a change in lifestyle.

My Father was on that weight-loss roller coaster for 24 years before he understood that the problem was his lifestyle. He spent too much time on the couch, too much time at the dinner table, and not enough time exercising. His weight-loss goals, though temporarily attainable, were permanently destined to fail because he expected to take the weight off quickly and keep it off permanently without an exercise program. However, when my Father realized that he was able to get into a smaller suit after every ten pounds of weight loss, he was motivated to lose the ten pounds so that he could “justify” the purchase of a new suit.

You also need an accomplishment-point if the goal can be measured in that way. Formulate a plan of action with a deadline that enables you to measure your progress in incremental steps - as my Father did by aiming to lose ten pounds at a time. Simply determining that you will, say, clean out the garage by a specific date helps you to claim the time that you need to accomplish the goal. You may choose to spend two hours each Saturday for the next six Saturdays or spend an entire Saturday on the project. Name the increments according to your needs. Make your goals fit your lifestyle.

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Determine Your Destination By Changing Your Thoughts

Your self-concept is determined by the perceptions you have of yourself - the way you see yourself. Your beliefs and expectations about who you are and how you fit into various situations plays an important role in the formation of your attitude and your self-image. Beliefs and expectations from others about who you are and what you can or cannot accomplish also contributes to changes in your self-image. Beliefs can either lubricate your success or create friction to halt positive changes in your achievement.

By focusing on creating positive beliefs, and taking positive action, you’ll yield positive results. On the other hand, creating negative beliefs, and taking negative action, yields negative results. When you create a self-image of inadequacy and failure, you build the negative reality and reinforce your own failure. You get caught up in your own failure script and become predetermined to fail in everything you attempt. When you believe you’ll fail, a self-fulfilling prophecy of failure emerges. Rather than experiencing the fruits of success, you allow yourself to give in to your self-defeating beliefs. If you believe you can’t change things, your self-image will work overtime making sure that you don’t succeed.

Ultimately, your beliefs determine your self-esteem and your success. The higher your self esteem, the greater will be your self-confidence and the ability to handle yourself positively in various situations. Beliefs and expectations from others also influence and determine how you define yourself, and the actions you eventually take. When a person you value highly believes in you, their beliefs and actions influence you to believe in yourself, increasing your self-esteem. Positively reinforce the beliefs, behaviors and desires that will help you, and others, achieve success. Your positive beliefs and perceptions paint a bright picture of reality, increasing your optimism and motivation.

Decide to improve the way you view life. A positive change in your perspective will change your self-image and self-esteem. One way to change your perspective is by developing positive self-talk. Positive self-talk utilizes your own inner voice. Your ability to control and consistently use positive self-talk boosts self-confidence. It’s important to change negative thoughts and emotions into positive beliefs about what you can and will do. As you continue to channel your thoughts and ideas in a positive and healthy way, you begin to overcome negative thoughts and beliefs.

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