Personal goal setting in four easy to use steps

Life moves on every day, things change: babies are born, people die, people are made redundant, people win the lottery, someone new moves in next door, your favourite shop on the high street shuts, a new shopping and entertainment area is built on some local wasteland. Life moves on. There’s nothing we can do about it. But what we can do is move with the changes. Take advantage of life. Live it. Nobody really wants to live in the past where nothing changes. You know you have to change even if it’s forced on you. So why not be ahead of the game and live life to the full. Are you ready for some personal goal setting? Are you ready to take your life to a higher level? A level where you can take advantage of what the world is offering you and you can take charge of where your life is going? If you’ve answered yes, that’s fantastic because you are putting yourself on a course for a better, more fulfilled vibrant life.

Make Conscious Decisions
Sounds easy but making conscious decisions as opposed to going with the flow is not as easy as it seems. Every day you make thousands of decisions. Some decisions you don’t even think about, some you make instinctively, some you make on impulse but you NEED to be aware that some decisions can affect the rest of your life. What you need to do is to THINK and put the logical side of your brain into action more. Make sure that you give yourself time to think and make the right decisions. You can listen to the advice of others but you are in control of your own life and you must make the ultimate decisions. If you have always been shy you can change that by making the decision to change and to make yourself feel confident. If you are overweight you can make a decision to eat healthily wherever possible, you can make a conscious decision every time you are offered an unhealthy option to refuse an seek a healthy alternative. Life is about choices, it’s about decisions, it’s about personal goal setting. Our life is the result of the decisions we’ve taken so far.

“Choices are the hinges of destiny” Attributed to both Edwin Markham and Pythagoras.

What Do You Really Want From Life?
Sounds great doesn’t it? But yes you are here once (for argument’s sake) and it’s up to you to decide what kind of life you want and more importantly what are you going to do about it. What do you really want, what do you see as being successful? Is it finding the perfect partner, making lots of money, being a surfer all day, being a doctor, being a great dad or mom? A good start is to take a piece of paper and do some personal goal setting: list down all the things you want to make you a success in your eyes. This will give you your goals, that once you have achieved them you would feel successful. Now you need to think about them and how you will achieve them, chunk them into manageable steps eg if you want to write a best seller, you could start with chunking this goal into manageable targets of writing a page a day. In a year you would have a 365 page book. Look at each of your goals and start by chunking them down and giving yourself time deadlines. You now have a plan to get what you want in life. Each week look at how you are doing and amend and change it if necessary. Don’t be too hard on yourself but remember it’s your life only you can live it.

“It is never too late to be who you might have been.” George Eliot

Think Positively and Expect good Results
Sounds a bit old hat doesn’t it. You could spend all your life wishing you could see a polar bear in the North Pole but if you don’t save the money and buy a ticket you are never going to go! It’s no good looking back on your life when you are 90 saying if only I’d set that business up… if only I’d taken that job.. if only I’d been kinder to…If only…. Hindsight is marvellous if only we could have it when we make the decisions. We are normally much wiser after the event. Learning from experience gives you the confidence to try different things. To reach your result or goal you need to think about how you are going to get there. Your mind needs to be open and flexible to all opportunities. Don’t be too rigid you need to adapt to all the possibilities around you. Be committed to your goals and targets, expect to achieve success but at all times be aware of opportunities that are open to you, be open and flexible to the options that life is presenting to you.

"It is easy to sit up and take notice. What is difficult is getting up and taking action." Al Batt Writer and Speaker

Trust yourself
Some call it a gut feeling, others call it intuition. Some great inventions and ideas come when you are not even thinking about it. Some even come in your sleep. The mind is a fabulous tool, millions of times better than any computer. We just need to trust it more. These great ideas come from when the mind is in a relaxed state and is not under pressure and has time to dedicating itself to creative and productive thought. Now you are getting your personal goal setting under control; you are making conscious decisions; you have identified what you want in life; you are open to new opportunities and are expecting success; now maybe one of the hardest things is you have to have trust and have confidence in yourself. It’s easy to blame people and circumstances for things not going right in your life but you have to take responsibility for what’s gone on in the past. Don’t try to over analyse what’s happened in the past, just know it’s happened and let your mind be clear for all future decisions. It’s now time to trust yourself to take responsibility and direction for your life so that you can develop your full potential and be the person you want to be.