Take It

SETTING GOALS

Many of us feel that we are adrift in this world and that despite hard work, they are getting nowhere. The most important reason for it is that they are not clear on what they want from life. Of course they have not spent much time doing it either. Of course all of us want to be big guys with good jobs and money. But that is different from formal goals. So we are like nomads, wandering but we are actually worse than nomads because nomads at least know that they want to wander. Goal setting is a powerful process to overcome our unintentional nomadic style. By knowing what want to achieve, we concentrate our efforts. None of what we discussed is possible without goal setting i.e. the important-urgent framework cannot be operated without it.

In the ‘important-urgent’ framework, we saw that the term important is a comparative term and in relation to achieving something. In fact, importance means ‘important to achieve the goal’ and ‘urgent means’ urgent to achieving the goal. We also saw how managing time helps us to manage our stress. Therefore goal setting is crucial for both. Top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields set goals. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your life. By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals, and you'll see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. You will also raise your self confidence as you start achieving and know that such achievements are taking you to something big as you recognize your own ability and competence in achieving the goals that you've set. Equally, achieving goals makes us feel in control and therefore reduces the stress.

Steps in Goal Setting

There are three steps in Goal Setting, which though given as...