Setting Personal Goals

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bluidkiti
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Age: 44
Joined: 01 Dec 2005
Posts: 7079


Posted: Thu Jan 05, 2006 8:53 am Post subject: Setting Personal Goals


Setting Personal Goals
By Chris Joscelyne

Without personal goals life can be an aimless journey lacking positive direction and achievement. If your life is to follow a Positive Path you need a plan, and to establish a plan personal goals are necessary.

Before you start setting your personal goals you need to consider what you want to achieve with your life. One mistake many people make is that their personal goals just relate to career pursuits rather than to all the important areas of life. This can lead to an unbalanced existence.

To focus your personal goal setting on the various areas in your life, consider setting goals in each of the following categories. They are listed in alphabetical order for convenience, however where each goal category is ranked in importance is really up to the individual.

* Career
What is your chosen vocation? What level do you want to reach in your career, and by when?

* Community Service
Do you want to help make the world a better place? If so, how?

* Creative
Do you want to achieve any creative goals? If so, in what artistic pursuit?

* Education
Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular? What information and skills will you need to achieve your other goals?

* Family
Do you want to be a life partner and parent? If so, how are you going to do this well? What kind of relationship do you want with your partner, your children and other family members?

* Financial
How much money do you want to earn at various stages of your life? What planning is required in order to accumulate wealth, use it wisely and share the benefits with those you choose?

* Physical
Are there any fitness and sporting goals you want to achieve? What steps are you going to take to achieve this?

* Recreation
How do you want to enjoy yourself? Are there any interests, hobbies, pastimes or social activities in which you want to be involved?

Write down your goals in each of your categories and consider them carefully. Are they realistic? What is your time-line to achieve them? Are there different time-lines for different goals?

Next, divide each goal into smaller intermediate time-line goals that will help you plan your Positive Path and measure your progress. These will be progressively smaller goals that will eventually lead you to your major goals. For example, if you are planning a time-line of 20 years, divide goals into smaller goals that need to be achieved if you are to reach your major goals. To do this, set a 5-year goal, a 1-year goal, a 3-month goal and a 1-month goal in each category and set an estimated start month and year for each time-line.

Remember, your circumstances at any given time can impact on your goals. New experiences and new information can see your goals and priorities change with time. This is part of the real world, however goal changes need to be scrutinised before they are adopted to ensure that they are realistic and not just a diversion with little chance of success.

By keeping yourself well informed about the world around you and your place in it, and by being honest with yourself, you will find that the quality and realism of your goal setting will get better with time and practice.


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