How can goals help you

What are your aspirations in life? Goal setting is the first step of successful goal achievement. It marks your first point toward success. Many people today are sleepwalking through life.

It can be fashion labels getting you to buy their clothes because you supposedly look cooler in them. When you stop to set goals and think about what you want, you break out of auto-pilot and start living a life of your conscious creation.

Instead of letting others tell you what to do, you proactively take charge and think about what you want for yourself. Top performers, world-class athletes, and successful people all set goals. You ensure that you are pushing yourself to get the best results, rather than resting on your laurels and waiting for things to happen.

Know that what gets measured, gets improved. There is literally nothing to work toward, and even though you may be working hard, your hard work may not translate into anything. Your goals propel you to take more action that you would have otherwise. What do you want to see 1 year from now? How about 3 years from now?

When you set goals, you think ahead , after which you can create your action plan. Know that all things are created twice: first in the mind, then in the physical world. The mental creation happens when you set your goals.

The physical creation happens when you work on your goal and bring it to life. When you set goals, you kick off the very first step to making your dreams happen , after which the next steps will follow suit.

Goals give you focus. While a life purpose gives you a general direction , your goals give you laser focus as to what exactly to spend your time and energy on. It can be a big thing or a small thing - sometimes it is easier to get going with something small. And it often helps if it's something that's just a little bit beyond what you currently can do - goals that stretch us can be motivating! Write it down. Writing down our goals increases our chances of sticking with them.

Write down how you will know you have reached your goals and when you'd like to have achieved it by. Ask yourself: what it will 'look' like and how will you feel when you've done it? How does it connect to who or what you value in your life? Describe your goal in specific terms and timescales e.

For example: 'I want to be able to wear my favourite jeans again', rather than 'I don't want to be over-weight anymore'. Tell someone. Telling someone we know about our goals also seems to increase the likelihood that we will stick at them.

Break your goal down. This is especially important for big goals. Think about the smaller goals that are steps on the way to achieving your bigger aim. Sometimes our big goals are a bit vague, like 'I want to be healthier'. Breaking these down helps us be more specific. So a smaller goal might be 'go running regularly' or even 'to be able to run around the park in 20 minutes without stopping'.

Write down your smaller goals and try to set some dates to do these by too. Having several smaller goals makes each of them a bit easier and gives us a feeling of success along the way, which also makes it more likely that we'll stay on track towards our bigger goal. Plan your first step.

An ancient Chinese proverb says that the journey of miles starts with one step. Even if your goal isn't to walk miles, thinking about the first step on the way will really help to get you started. Even if you don't know where to start there's no excuse - your first step could be to research 'how to…' on the internet or think of people you could ask or to get a book on the subject from the library.

The body follows the mind. Seeing progress is addicting. Goal setting helps you align focus with behavior because you get feedback on your progress. The actions you take—or avoid—offer clues about your values, beliefs, challenges, strengths and weaknesses which allow you to course correct as necessary and reset your goal achievement strategy and subsequently, your focus.

Perhaps the most important reason why goals work is because they build character. Actually, achieving goals builds character. It will also keep you from getting down. However, when you measure progress while working towards a specific goal, you will be able to see that though you might not be where you are wanting to get, you have made movements in the right direction and are a lot better off than where you started.

If they have to get in shape for say an NFL combine, you better believe they are going to be working out each and every day, whether they feel good or not, whether they are sore or not, whether they are tired or not, whether they want to or not, because they have a goal. Procrastination is something we all battle from time-to-time, myself included. However, when you set goals in life , specific goals for what you want to achieve, it helps you understand that procrastination is dangerous.

When you set a goal and reach it, it gives you the taste of victory. You will want to taste that again. What does that mean?