How To Set Goals You Can Achieve

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Differentiate Between Short Term and Long Term Goals

How to set goals for your life that you can actually achieve, need not be a complemented and daunting process.

You need to understand how to set personal goals using the SMART Goals acronym: SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely)

I have been providing strategic planning and goal setting for both corporate industry as well as individuals for over 10 years-you can read my story about me here. Regardless of your specific goals in life in how to set goals and how to set personal goals, you need to first prioritize your goals into short and long term goal strategies.

This may seem obvious to you but many people I believe suffer many failures in their lives because they do not identify and prioritize the most urgent and pressing issues.

Nor do they possess the hope and faith in themselves or in God, in seeing through fruition, their goals and aspirations that they have in life.

For example, if your immediate short term goal is college education, then your college planning needs are your first priority. You need to identify sources of college scholarships and college tuition charges. Also you will need to soon decide whether you will need to take on a part time job in order to purse your vocational and long-term career goals objectives down the road, to help offset your educational costs. You may down load my free SMART goal worksheet here.

Understanding ICPRA Before You Can Begin Your Goal Setting Quest...

I really believe you need to first understand that setting goals is a lifelong process and not a one time event before you can actually understand how to set goals, and how to set personal goals for yourself.

The acronym ICPRA is something I developed several years ago that I believe makes more of an impact with clients who are more apt to actually complete their goals then just developing new learning strategies in how to articulate your personal and business writing goals on paper. Maybe you’re in the same boat….you have an idea or a goal whether short or long term that you would like to complete-

but…

it’s the actual doing part that you get hung up on. The acronym ICPRA stands for: ICPRA: ( Idealize, Conceptualize, Prioritize, Realize, Actualize) Although, not new in terms of definitions-their application is new when discussing goal setting and smart goals in general.

IDEALIZE: :

This is the first phase where the light bulb goes off in your brain and you start to think out some things, some goals and ideas as it pertains how to achieve your goals. You've got to make the mental jump first. You jot down some ideas which is really the first step in the goal-setting process as your mind's eye sees the creative visualization before you as you think about and visualize your goals.

CONCEPTUALIZE:

This is the second phase, whereby you start to conceptualize and really start to begin the positive thinking process, in identifying specific possible goals for yourself or others. You start to ask yourself questions such as:

What are your short term and long term goals?
What are your career goals?

What are your weight loss goals?
What is your goal setting action plan?
What are your work at home business goals?
What are your money management goals?
What are your retirement planning goals ?
What are your fitness goals or your educational or your college planning goals?

PRIORITIZE:

This is the critical third phase where you start to rank and evaluate your goals based up what's most important to you; also you start to spell out short term goals vs. long term goals in how to set goals for yourself.

This process may take weeks or even months-everyone is different in this stage so it is important not to rush. You need to develop and implement sound time management tips to keep you on track in learning how to set goals, and how to set personal goals for yourself.

There is no one size fits all "cookie-cutter" approach to setting goals. We are all different human beings, and it is only logical and natural that we all require a different road map in charting our personal goal setting and long term career and personal goal paths in life.

REALIZE:

This is the fourth phase in that you must harness the hope, faith and belief in yourself and in God to see through fruition-your personal goals you have identified in achieving. If you can Believe it-You can Achieve it!

You must believe in yourself FIRST before you can accomplish it as reality and act upon your goal setting action plan. How to set goals and how to set personal goals for yourself begins with your first believing it will happen... How to write goals without acting upon them is self defeating and will just lead to more failures. in your life is so critically important.

ACTUALIZE:

Finally you're here! You've made it, you've come a long way-but this is where you actually see the fruit of your hard labor. You get to see and experience the progress that you've made. Sure they may be small baby steps-but any step in the right direction is the way you want to go.

You've made a goal plan, implemented your plan, and steadily you have seen progress made, whether trying to work on and tackle your debt elimination , plan or taking up an exercise program such as jogging.

However you also need to have the hope and faith in yourself or in God, that you will actually achieve your goal objectives. Just writing down your SMART goals is not good enough. You have to learn to develop the faith in moving forward by putting your goals and dreams into action. Irrespective of your spiritual views on faith and belief, one’s faith is an important element of your overall how to set goal plan. By harnessing the faith and belief that is God given, will only increase your self confidence in yourself.

How To Set Goals Is a Life Long Process

I receive e-mails from people around the world who are wanting to accomplish XYZ in their lives and need a goal plan or system that will work. I respond to every e-mail I receive, but I inform all my e-mail recipients that goal setting, just like living and breathing is a life-long process.

Once you accomplish let’s say in losing 50 pounds as part of your weight loss goals you can then move onto other challenging goals. Maybe one long term goal is to work for yourself in your own work at home business , to be independent and your own boss. Maybe you have language learning goals such as how to learn English or another language as an example.

The point here, as long as you are living and breathing and not buried yet (SMILE) , you are never done setting goals.

Your goals once accomplished, you then create new goals, new challenges for yourself.

Your life has just begun-dare to dream BIG…

If you can believe it-you can achieve it holds true. Conversely, if you don’t believe you WILL more likely than NOT you WON’T… Your Life is Waiting...

Remember: ”The only Unfulfilled Goals in Your Life are the Ones you Never Attempt”

personal goal setting