Goal Setting – Who Needs It!

Does Goal Setting Work?

Maybe this is why your all your goal setting is not getting the results you hope for…

I have never been one for formalizing goal setting… Well I should actually say, I have gone through several periods where I have ‘followed’ advice and painstakingly set my goals, exactly as instructed. For the most part I have not personally found it helpful…

There is so much information and hype out there about how you must set your goals… All the quips and catchy phrases… ‘He who fails to plan, plans to fail’… I’m sure you’ve heard it before… right?

I don’t mean to treat this lightly, because I am sure there is truth to it all, it just always seems to be a bit elusive… Sometimes people ‘fail’… plans or no plans… In fact it would be a rare person who succeeded with every goal they had!

A lot of our goals either fall very short or they just don’t happen at all…

With all that though, I do believe we should set goals, but it is all about how  you go about it, and also the attitude you have about achieving them.

Justin Popovic covered it recently in a post on his blog, about the Goal Striving Paradox. You can catch his take on it in the video below (just click the pic and the video pops up), and you can go check out his post.

Goals Don’t Mean Anything

If you don’t keep your goals in mind then really just writing them down doesn’t mean anything… At least that is what I have found from my own personal experience, and regardless of what a lot of the proponents of the ‘put it out there, and it happens’ type thinking, says.

You know the story, if you just ‘believe’ it then it will happen… Sorry… I can’t swallow that…

I am sure that some people’s experience might support that view, and that’s just fine, however, I think for most of us believing has to be combined with action, and perhaps that is the secret.

If you set your goals it is always a good idea to create an action plan that can actually lead to you completing that goal, and then you need to take steps towards those action points on a regular if not daily basis.

There is a ton of information out there about goal setting and it can get confusing, but for me I think the best thing is to strive to keep it simple. The more complicated things get the more overwhelmed you become and the harder it is to keep sight of your goals or even exactly what steps you need to be taking to achieve them.

Some Points to Remember about Goal Setting

1. Identify Your Most Effective Goals

Some goals are easy to identify… I want a new house or I want to get out of debt (not necessarily expressed in an effective ‘goal’), are pretty easy to identify, but other goals that could actually effect your potential