The main thing is to set a goal and go towards it. How to set a goal and achieve it (tips). Tools for achieving goals

Whether your goals in life are big or your dreams are small, set goals for achieving them. To achieve some things, you will have to spend your entire life, and to achieve some, a couple of days will be enough. When your plans and dreams come true, you feel that indescribable feeling of accomplishment and dignity. Starting to make your dreams come true may seem difficult, but we will show you how to do it.

Steps

Set achievable goals

Determine your goals in life. Ask yourself some important questions about what you want in your life. What do you really want to achieve: today, in a year or in your lifetime? The answers to these questions can be quite general, for example, “I want to be happy,” or “I want to help people.” Imagine what you hope to achieve in 10, 15 or 20 years.

• Goals can be completely different, for example, opening your own business, losing weight, or starting a family one day.

1. Divide your life goals into smaller tasks. Divide your life into specific areas or areas that you would like to change or improve over time. These may include: career, finances, family, education or health. First, ask yourself what exactly you want to achieve in each area of ​​your life within 5 years.

   • For a life goal like “I want to get fit,” you can set small goals for yourself, such as “I want to eat healthy” or “I want to run a marathon.”
   • For a life goal such as: “I want to have my own business,” goals could be: “I want to learn how to effectively manage a business” and “I want to open my own bookstore.”

2. Set short-term goals. Now that you already know roughly what you want to achieve in a few years, you can concentrate on completing specific tasks. Set yourself reasonable deadlines for completing tasks; in the case of short-term ones, no more than a year.

   Turn your tasks into steps towards achieving your goal. Overall, you need to decide why you are taking on this task and what it will contribute to. Here are some good questions to ask yourself: Is it worth it? Is it worth starting now? Do I really want this?

   • For example, if you want to get in shape in life, your short-term goal might be to try a new sport for 6 months, but ask yourself how much it will help you run a marathon. If not, change the task so that it becomes the next step towards achieving your goal.

3. Reevaluate your tasks periodically. Your life goals may not change, however, sometimes think about reviewing your short-term goals. Will you be able to achieve them within the given time frame? Are they still necessary in achieving your life goal? Be flexible in setting short-term goals.

   • Perhaps you have achieved good results in the 5K run and after a few training sessions you should change your goal from “run 5K” to “run 10K.” Over time, you can set other goals, such as “run half a marathon” and then “run a marathon”.
   • To open your own business, after completing tasks such as completing accounting courses and finding a premises, you can set yourself a task, for example, to take out a small business loan, buy a premises, obtain a license from the local administration. After purchasing a premises or renting it, get books, hire staff and open the doors of your store. You may soon be thinking about opening a second one.

   Follow an effective strategy to achieve your goal

   1. Be specific about your goals. Before you set a goal, you need to know whether it can be the answer to very specific questions: who, what, where, when and why. When setting a task, understand how useful it will be in achieving your life goal.

      • Being in shape has a rather vague wording. Therefore, it is worth creating a more specific goal “to run a marathon”, which, in turn, is achieved through short-term goals - “to run 5 km”. When you set yourself such a task, answer the questions: who? - I what? - run 5 km, where? – in the local park, when? – within 6 weeks, why? – to achieve your goal and run a marathon.
      • In order to open your own business, create a short-term task “take accounting courses.” She can answer the following questions: who? - I what? - accounting courses, where? - in the library, when? – every Saturday for 5 weeks, why? – to manage your company’s budget.

   2. Create tasks that can be measured. In order to be able to track progress, goals must be measurable. “I’m going to walk more” is much more difficult to evaluate than “I’m going to walk 16 laps every day.” In reality, you should have several ways to evaluate your results.

      • “Run 5 km” is a task that can be assessed. You know exactly when you need to do it. You may need to create other short-term goals, such as “run at least 3 km three times a week.” This all works towards the goal set for you, after achieving which the next measurable goal will be “run 5 km per month, in 4 minutes”
      • Also, the task of “taking an accounting course” is quite measurable. These are specific classes that you need to take and sign up for and go to class once a week. Less specific task is “to learn accounting,” you will never know whether you have achieved your goal or not, or whether you have completed the task you set for yourself.

   3. Be realistic in setting goals. It is important to assess the situation as honestly as possible for yourself and understand how realistic it is to achieve your goals, and whether you have everything to make them come true. Ask yourself this question, do you have enough knowledge, time, skills or resources.

      • In order to run a marathon, you need to spend a lot of time jogging. If you don't have enough free time, this task is not suitable for you. In this case, find another task for yourself that requires less time and can help you achieve your global goal.
      • If you want to open your own bookstore, but you have no experience in such work, no start-up capital, no honest understanding of the mechanism of a bookstore, and you don’t like reading at all, you should probably give up on your own goal, because perhaps you will not achieve success.

   4. Set your priorities. At any moment in your life you have several tasks to complete. various stages completion. Determining the importance of a task or goal is critical. If you find yourself with too many tasks to complete, you will feel overwhelmed. This will lead to the end goal never being achieved.

   5. Track your progress. Entries in personal diaries or journals are a great way to track progress for both personal and professional purposes. Self-assessment is the key to maintaining motivation towards achieving your goal. This method may even inspire you to work harder.

      • Ask friends to track your progress and help you stay on track. For example, if you're training for a big race, meet regularly with a friend who will keep you accountable to your goals.
      • If you're training for a marathon, write down your progress in a journal or diary, how far you ran and in what time, and how it made you feel. Once you see where you started, you will be more motivated to complete more difficult tasks.
      • Once you've run a marathon, you have to figure out what you want next. Would you like to run another marathon and improve your time? Perhaps you want to try triathlon? Or do you want to get back to running 5 and 10 km?
      • After opening your store, do you want to get involved in community events, literary clubs or literacy clubs? Perhaps you want to earn more money? Maybe it’s worth opening a cafe in a store or in an adjacent room?
   • Use the SMART method to set effective goals. The SMART method is used in the work of trainers, motivation specialists, in personnel departments and in educational system to determine goals, achievements and attitudes. Each of the letters SMART is the beginning of a concept that helps in achieving the goals.

A goal differs from a dream in that it has not only an image, but also real ways to achieve it. Without the means and concrete actions that make approaching the goal possible, one can only dream and fantasize.

A goal is an ideal, mental anticipation of the result of a person’s actions and the ways to achieve it using certain means.

In other words, a goal is a possible, imaginable future event or state of something, the implementation of which is desirable for a person (personal image of the future). At the same time, the means and possible paths necessary to achieve it are always consistent with the goal.

Otherwise, this desired future will only be a spell of the elements (lack of possible means) or fruitless dreams (lack of ways to achieve it). Thus, a goal is always something for which specific human actions are carried out. No actions, no goals. And vice versa.

How to set goals correctly

The fulfillment of our desires and the realization of our dreams largely depends on how correctly we set our goals. Rules for setting goals help turn our aspirations and desires into reality. Therefore, in this article we will consider in detail the question “How to set goals correctly?”, and we will understand how to translate your desires and dreams into the category of real and clear goals that can be achieved.

1. Rely only on your own strengths

Before you set a goal, make it clear to yourself that all responsibility for its implementation falls entirely on your shoulders. To avoid the temptation to blame someone else for your failures, set goals that you can achieve without outside help. This goal-setting rule will save you in the future (if you don’t achieve something) from making the wrong conclusions when working on mistakes.

2. Formulate your goals correctly

Firstly, goals, like ideas, must be written down on paper (notebook, diary, diary). A goal written down in detail has a much greater chance of being realized. If you believe that you can keep them in your head without formulating goals on paper, then do not flatter yourself about achieving them. Such goals can safely be classified as dreams. Dreams and desires wander chaotically in our heads, they are chaotic, disorderly and completely unclear to us.

The efficiency of such dream goals is extremely small; in reality, they are achieved very, very rarely. Even with words, we often cannot describe what we really want. Therefore, formulating a goal must necessarily take place with a pencil in hand. The saying is true: “What is written with a pen cannot be cut down with an axe.”

Setting and formulating a goal with the help of a recording involves our subconscious in active work; a formulated goal gives confidence and makes each next step meaningful.

The man caught a goldfish. And she says to him: “Let me go, I will fulfill any of your wishes.” Well, he thought and thought about how to fit everything into one desire and said: “I want me to have everything!” “Okay,” the fish answers, “you HAD everything.”

Secondly, correct goal setting and formulation imply that the goal must carry a positive charge. Therefore, it is better to formulate it using the rules of affirmations - talk about what you want, and not about what you don’t want. The correct goal is “to be rich”, “to be sober”, “to be slim”. The wrong goal is “to avoid poverty,” “not to drink,” “to get rid of excess weight.” If nothing positive comes to mind and something like “I don’t want this, I don’t want that” is constantly spinning around, try asking correctly: “This is what I don’t want. Then what do I want instead?

Also, following this rule of setting a goal, when formulating it, it is better not to use words that create resistance and reduce the effectiveness of the goal - “necessary”, “needed”, “should”, “must”. These words are the antipodes of the word “want”. How can you want, using blocking words to motivate? Therefore, replace “must” with “want”, “should” with “can”, “should” with “will do”.

The correct goal is “I want to relax and will go on vacation”, “I can and know how to earn money and will earn a lot of money.” Wrong goal - “I need to relax and go on vacation”, “In order to pay off the debt I must earn money.” It is also best to formulate a goal in terms of a result rather than a process: that is, “do this” rather than “work better.”

3. Break big goals into subgoals

Any big goal seems overwhelming until you begin to divide it into parts. For example, the desire to buy real estate abroad seems impossible at first glance. But if you move towards your goal in systematic steps, dividing it into stages, it will be easier to achieve it.

You can first set a goal to earn 3 thousand rubles a day, then 5 thousand, etc. Step by step (goal by goal) you will reach a level where you can think about buying real estate. Setting complex (global) goals and objectives, breaking them down into smaller ones, has an excellent motivational effect. Having achieved one, albeit insignificant, goal, you will feel satisfaction and the desire to move on. Reaching near goals, you gain strength and confidence to reach distant ones.

The way of thinking will gradually change. Understand, it is unrealistic to earn 20 thousand a month, and then in a few weeks increase your income to 500 thousand. Big money loves the prepared.

4. Specification of the goal

Often the reason why a set goal is not achieved is its lack of specificity, namely:

• Lack of clearly formulated specific results. What does it mean - “I want to learn” Chinese“- learn a couple of hundred words or does it mean learning to communicate fluently in this language, or maybe “learning Chinese” means learning all 80 thousand characters and reading the text without a dictionary?
• There is no way to measure this result. When setting goals and objectives, it is important to consider the further ability to measure the result. For example, if you want to lose weight, you need to know how much weight you want to lose, five, ten, or maybe thirty kilograms.
• Lack of clearly defined deadlines. Here are two examples of goal setting: the first is “I want to increase the traffic to my website to a thousand unique visitors per day,” the second is “I want to increase the traffic to my website to a thousand unique visitors per day in three months.” The first option, without clearly defined deadlines, looks more like a desire than a goal. Well, a person wants to increase traffic to his resource, so what? He can come to this only in five years. The second option is a different matter - there is a set deadline that will stimulate and encourage in every possible way. Surely the deadline was determined reasonably, and not taken out of thin air, and therefore you will have to forget about laziness and work productively.

More, more specifics!

5. Goal adjustment

Be flexible! Just because you've set a goal doesn't mean you can't make adjustments as necessary. Anything can happen, circumstances may arise that can slow down or speed up the achievement of the goal, so you need to be prepared to adjust the goal. Remember that inertia in aspirations has never made anyone either successful or happy man. Life changes, and you must have time to change with it!

6. Attractiveness of the goal

The goal and the consequences that its achievement will lead to should attract you! choose goals that attract, inspire and inspire you, otherwise “the game is not worth the candle.”

7. Believe that your goal is achievable

After formulating and setting a specific goal, you need to penetrate it and consolidate it in the subconscious. It happens that while consciously trying to achieve a goal, we are subconsciously not ready to achieve it. You can desire a goal, but deep down in your soul you don’t believe in its feasibility, you don’t believe in your abilities, or you simply consider yourself unworthy.

It is not enough to correctly formulate a goal, you need to charge it with the energy of confidence - this is the most important condition for readiness to achieve your goal. All successful people, from television stars (Oprah Winfrey, Larry King...) and outstanding athletes (Michael Jordan, Fedor Emelianenko...), to politicians (Mitt Romney, Silvio Berlusconi, Arnold Schwarzenegger...) and businessmen (Richard Branson,...) have achieved what they have thanks to the ability to correctly formulate and set goals.

8. Adjustment of goals and objectives

If you have already defined your main life goals, this does not mean that you cannot partially change them over time. Adjustments to goals and objectives can take place at every stage of your life path. Flexibility in our time is the most important quality that allows us to adapt to changing conditions. It must be remembered that rigid views have never led anyone to success or happiness. You must change along with the world around you.

At least once a year, every person determined to succeed should devote time to such an activity as goal adjustment. For example, you can do this every birthday because it is the moment when you grow one year older and realize that you are wiser. Dedicate this day to analyzing the fruits that you managed to collect over the previous year.

Focus on your victories and don't forget to praise yourself for them. At the same time, you should not lose sight of your defeats. Draw the most correct conclusions and think about what you have to work on in the coming period. Be sure to evaluate the list of goals that was compiled a year ago. Carefully analyze each of the assigned tasks. Think about what exactly you did during the year to implement it.

Assess how far you have come in your pursuits. Ask yourself whether a specific goal has the same meaning for you as it did a year ago. Perhaps today this task will seem insignificant to you or, in some respects, even naive. In such a situation, you can safely cross it out.

Once you've gone through all your goals, start creating a new list. You can modify old tasks, focusing on the requirements of the present moment. If you have new thoughts about your goals, be sure to record them. At the same time, it is necessary to ensure that new tasks do not contradict the old ones that are still relevant. We must remember that our capabilities must be assessed adequately. Try to set achievable goals for yourself, since unrealistic tasks that are almost impossible to achieve at this stage will become the subject of your disappointment in a year.

If your life has changed significantly over Last year, adjusting tasks is almost mandatory for you. There is no need to set too strict time limits for yourself. You don't have to wait a year to adjust your goals. By forming new life priorities, you will have the opportunity to understand and accept all the changes that have happened in your life.

Most likely, you have many goals. Try to write them down briefly and clearly on a piece of paper. Most likely, you won’t be able to do this quickly the first time, and the results of such work may surprise you. It wouldn’t hurt to compare the old and new lists in order to understand what you’ve given up and where you’re heading.

Remember that you have the opportunity to change both the goals themselves and the methods for achieving them. For example, a past strategy for achieving a certain goal may seem universally stupid to you at the moment. Make changes in your life, otherwise there is a risk that you will remain in the same place for a long time.

Today I will teach you how to set goals very effectively from both a physical and metaphysical point of view.

Setting goals is one of the most common habits of successful people.

Attention! Read the biographies of some of the most successful people in history and you will find that they had specific dreams, visions or goals for what they wanted to achieve and successfully achieved >>>

I believe that when you set a goal, you need to do three things to achieve the result.

Firstly, you must have burning desire get there.

Secondly, you must firmly believe that the goal is possible and accessible.

Thirdly, you must be able to expectations, that is, you should expect to receive a result.

While this may seem a little philosophical, there is plenty of evidence in the scientific community to support it.

The best documented example is the placebo effect.

Doctors have discovered that patients can cure themselves of illnesses when they are prescribed powerful drugs that are actually sugar pills.

The placebo effect has also spread to cancer research, and doctors are experimenting with treatments for patients in an attempt to get rid of cancer naturally, where patients visualize themselves healthy and cured.

Could the same psychological factors that cause the placebo effect be applied to goal setting and thus help make a person or business more successful?

I believe in it.

Perhaps nothing else will give confidence the idea of ​​burning desire, faith and expectation more than the next story.

The Sam Walton Story

Sam was a poor child who grew up in the heartland of America during the Great Depression.

Times were tough and the little boy worked hard to help his parents make ends meet.

He got up early in the morning to milk the cows and sell the milk to his 10 to 12 customers for 10 cents a gallon—a lot of money in those days. He also went door to door selling magazine subscriptions when he was just eight years old.

Sam had one good character trait - ambition. His mother always told him that he should try to be the best he can in whatever he does. That's why Sam always did everything that interested him with real passion.

Even as a child growing up in Missouri, Sam was determined to set bold goals for himself. He was so ambitious that when he became a Boy Scout, he made a bet with all the other kids in his troop that he would be the first among them to reach the rank of Eagle Scout. Earning the Eagle Badge was no easy task and required extreme courage. Most of the Eagle Scouts were a year older than Sam.

Sam won a bet when, as a 14-year-old, he saved a man from drowning in a river.

At that time, little Sam became the youngest Eagle Scout in Missouri.

In high school, Sam was elected chairman student council and was active in many other clubs. Even though he was short, Sam joined the basketball team and was thrilled when he won the state championship. Sam also became the quarterback of the football team, which also went undefeated.

Setting high goals came naturally to him.

His ambition and positive mental attitude stayed with him when he graduated high school. By the time Sam got to college, he even had thoughts about one day becoming President of the United States.

He decided that he should first try to become chairman of the university's student body. So he won in every community he came to, and by the time he graduated from college, he was elected president of the senior men's honor society, an officer of his fraternity, president of his senior class, and president of his Bible class. He also served as captain and president of Scissors and Blade, an elite military ROTC organization.

While doing all this, he also ran his own newspaper business and earned between $4,000 and $6,000 a year, which was quite some serious money at the end of the Depression.

“Sam was a little distracted at times,” said the circulation manager of one of the newspapers Sam delivered in college, “he had so much to do and wanted that he kept forgetting everything. But when this boy focused on one thing, he certainly got what he wanted.”

Sam graduated from college with a bachelor's degree and got a job at J.C. Penney as a management trainee for $75 a month.

But Sam wasn't satisfied with becoming a management trainee and soon began looking for other opportunities.

At the age of 27, with a loan from his father-in-law, he bought a small discount store in Newport, Arkansas.

Despite initial poor sales and strong competition from larger stores across the street, Sam set a goal for his small Newport store to become the best, most profitable store in Arkansas within 5 years.

Sam worked hard for five years and achieved his goal. Soon he had the largest store in Arkansas. But he didn't have enough time to enjoy his success.

Soon his world collapsed.

The lease had expired and the owner of his building refused to renew the lease. He knew Sam had nowhere else to go and decided he wanted to take over the store so he could pass it on to his son.

“I couldn’t believe this was happening to me,” Sam said, “It was like a nightmare.”

But Sam was not the kind of person who could easily resign.

He and his family moved to another city. There, in Bentonville, Arkansas, he opened a new store. He recalled overhearing some people commenting on his new venture: "Let's give this guy 60 days, maybe 90. He won't last that long."

Well, Sam lasted over 90 days. And his new store became successful. He soon began expanding his business and opening other stores throughout the state.

In 1962, at the age of 44, he opened his most ambitious store yet. He called it Wal-Mart.

The rest is history.

In 1985, Forbes named Sam Walton the richest man in America. A child who had to go shopping selling milk and newspapers founded the largest company in the world.

Wal-Mart has made millionaires of thousands of shareholders, provided jobs for millions of Americans and helped improve the quality of life in many developing countries by reducing the cost of goods.

In 1992, Sam Walton received the Presidential Medal of Honor, the highest civilian honor that can be awarded to an American citizen.

From his childhood until the time he died in 1992, Sam Walton was successful in everything he undertook. It's hard to say what qualities make people like Sam Walton successful in so many different endeavors. But in his autobiography he talks about why he considers himself so lucky.

“I don’t know what makes a person ambitious,” Sam later said, “but the fact is that I was full of enthusiasm and ambition from the day I was born.”

I expect victory. I enter into difficult tasks from which I always intend to emerge victorious.

It never occurred to me that I might lose, it was almost as if I had the right to win.

This kind of thinking often seems to turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy.

How to Set Goals: The Sam Walton Method

There are several lessons to be learned from this story.

1. Set clear, specific goals for what you want to achieve.

Sam motivated himself by knowing what he wanted and setting a specific goal within a time frame. When he opened his first store, he decided that he wanted his store to be "the best, most profitable store in Arkansas within 5 years."

2. Set high goals

We create our own limitations. Most of us are guilty of aiming too low rather than too high.

Sam Walton dreamed big—even as a child. With each achievement, his confidence grew and his goals became bigger and bigger. He didn't limit himself.

When you set a goal, remember: “A good goal should scare you a little and excite you.”

Think about your current tasks and test them against this rule. If your goals don't scare or excite you, try something more challenging.

The mind is your limitation. As long as the mind can imagine that you can do something, you can do it—as long as you truly believe it 100 percent.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, world famous actor, athlete, former governor of California.

3. Don't let defeat deter you from your path.

Sam liked to smile when he thought about one of his early bosses at J. Penney who told him, “I would fire you if you weren't such a good salesman. Maybe you're just not cut out for retail."

He did not allow other people's negative ideas to influence him. When he lost his first store, he overcame his depression, then packed his bags, moved to a new city and started again.

Perhaps if Sam had not lost his first store and was forced to start a new one in Bentonville, Wal-Mart would not have been founded.

Defeat, seen from a different perspective, is often simply a mechanism for setting us on edge. the right way or learning a valuable lesson.

4. Desire - Faith - Expectation

Your goals must meet the criteria of Desire, Belief and Expectation.

The goal should be something that you strongly desire. The greater your desire, the stronger your will to achieve your goal.

Napoleon Hill said, “If your desires are strong enough, you appear to have superhuman powers.”

It depends on your belief system. As you achieve more in life, your self-confidence increases. It increases your confidence and fuels you to achieve even greater results.

Finally, you should expect the end result.

The waiting is the hardest thing.

But a creative visualization tool helps tremendously.

Your subconscious mind cannot distinguish between real and imaginary experiences. By frequently visualizing the end result you desire, you force your subconscious mind to perceive it as real. This causes the mind to draw this situation into your life. Perhaps no one expressed this point more accurately than Gandhi when he said:

“The person I want to become, if I believe that I will be, then I will become.”

How to set goals for life?

Now that you understand the principles behind goal setting, it's time to take everything you've learned so far and understand how to set goals in practice.

I'll show you a simple yet powerful method you can use to create a life plan around your goals.

Step 1 - Determine what is important to you

Think about different aspects of your life. Health, Family, Friends, Career, Spirituality, Finance, Charity, Education...etc.

Determine which of these areas are most important to you. Perhaps your main concerns are family, spirituality and career.

Step 2 - Set long-term goals in each area

Come up with a vision of where you would like to be five to ten years from today in each of these areas.

Perhaps your career vision is to run your own business. Your family vision may be to travel the world with your spouse and children.

Your financial vision might be to have $250,000 in the bank.

Think about what you want.

Remember the rule - a good goal should scare you a little and excite you.

By thinking about where you want to be five or ten years in the future, you've created a long-term vision.

Step 3 - Decide what you need to do this year to achieve your long-term vision

So you want to have $250,000 saved in the bank by next year. What do you need to do this year to achieve this goal? You may need to take an investing course, get a better paying job, or start looking for new business opportunities.

Do this with every long-term goal. This exercise will help you focus on long-term and short-term planning.

Many people tend to make only short-term plans and lose sight of the long term.

Others set long-term goals but then forget what they need to do right now to achieve those long-term goals.

To be effective at setting goals, you need to have a long-term vision and short-term plans to achieve that vision.

Step 4 - Write it down on paper

I'll show you a simple method called "Planning life cycle" You can see a photo of such a diagram below.

The first horizontal line represents time. The first vertical bar represents each focus area - in the table below, the focus areas are Family, Health, Career, Creativity, and Finance.

Now divide the sheet in half. Use the first half to write down your short-term goals—goals you need to accomplish this year. Please note that each goal corresponds to a time period.

The second half is used to list longer-term goals—what you want to achieve in the next year and then over the next five years.

Learn more about life cycle planning in the video. Dream checklist.

First, you start looking at your long-term goals. Write down your long-term vision for each focus area in the appropriate row and column.

Then ask yourself:

“What do I need to do this year to make sure I’m on track to my long-term vision?”

Write down your short-term goals in the appropriate row and column.

This document may be modified. Go ahead and add new goals as you come up with them. You can also delete old goals if your plans change.

Step 5 - Begin the Creative Visualization Process

The lifecycle planning worksheet should be placed in a place where you are likely to review it daily. It could be in the office drawer you open daily, as a file on your computer desktop, or in a frame on the wall.

When you meditate, spend a few minutes visualizing yourself achieving each goal.

The fulfillment of our desires and the realization of our dreams largely depends on how correctly we set our goals. Rules for setting goals help turn our aspirations and desires into reality. Therefore, in this article we will consider in detail the question - “ How to set goals correctly?”, and we will understand how to translate our desires and dreams into the category of real and clear goals that can be achieved.

How to set goals correctly

Rely only on your own strength

Before you set a goal, make it clear to yourself that all responsibility for its implementation falls entirely on your shoulders. To avoid the temptation to blame someone else for your failures, set goals that you can achieve without outside help. This goal-setting rule will save you in the future (if you don’t achieve something) from making the wrong conclusions when working on mistakes.

Formulate your goals correctly

First, goals, like ideas need to be written down on paper (notebook, diary, diary). A goal written down in detail has a much greater chance of being realized.

If you think that you can keep them in your head without formulating your goals on paper, then don’t flatter yourself about achieving them. Such goals can safely be classified as dreams. Dreams and desires wander chaotically in our heads, they are chaotic, disorderly and completely unclear to us. The efficiency of such dream goals is extremely small; in reality, they are achieved very, very rarely. Even with words, we often cannot describe what we really want. Therefore, formulating a goal must necessarily take place with a pencil in hand. The saying is true - “ What is written with a pen cannot be cut out with an ax».

Setting and formulating a goal with the help of a recording involves our subconscious in active work; a formulated goal gives confidence and makes each next step meaningful.

Secondly, correct goal setting and formulation imply that the goal should carry positive charge. Therefore, it is better to formulate it using rules of affirmations- talk about what you want, not what you don't want.

The right goal – « to be rich», « be sober», « be slim». Wrong goal - « escape poverty», « not to drink», « get rid of excess weight».

If nothing positive comes to mind and something like “I don’t want this, I don’t want that” is constantly spinning, try ask correctly: « This is what I don't want. Then what do I want instead?»

Also, following this rule of setting a goal, when formulating it, it is better not to use words that create resistance and reduce the effectiveness of the goal - “necessary”, “needed”, “should”, “must”. These words are the antipodes of the word “want”. How can you want, using blocking words to motivate? Therefore, replace “must” with “want”, “should” with “can”, “should” with “will do”.

The right goal - « I want to relax and will go on vacation», « I can and am able to earn money and will earn a lot of money». Wrong goal – « I need to relax and go on vacation», « To pay off my debt I have to earn money».

It is also best to formulate a goal in terms of a result rather than a process: that is, “do this” rather than “work better.”

Break big goals into subgoals

Any big goal seems overwhelming until you begin to divide it into parts. For example, the desire to buy real estate abroad seems at first glance impossible. But if you move towards your goal in systematic steps, dividing it into stages, it will be easier to achieve it. You can first set a goal to earn 3 thousand rubles a day, then 5 thousand, etc. Step by step (goal by goal) you will reach a level where you can think about buying real estate.

Setting complex (global) goals and objectives, breaking them down into smaller ones, has an excellent motivational effect. Having achieved one, albeit insignificant, goal, you will feel satisfaction and the desire to move on. Reaching near goals, you gain strength and confidence to reach distant ones.

The way of thinking will gradually change. Understand, it is unrealistic to earn 20 thousand a month, and then in a few weeks increase your income to 500 thousand. Big money loves the prepared.

Specification of the goal

Often the reason why a set goal is not achieved is its lack of specificity, namely:

• Lack of clearly formulated specific results. What means - " I want to learn Chinese”, - learn a couple of hundred words or does it mean learning to communicate fluently in this language, or maybe “learning Chinese” means learning all 80 thousand hieroglyphs and reading the text without a dictionary?
• There is no way to measure this result. At setting goals and tasks, it is important to consider the further possibility of measuring the result. For example, if you want to lose weight, you need to know how much weight you want to lose, five, ten or maybe thirty kilograms.
• Lack of clearly defined deadlines. Here are two examples of goal setting: the first is “ I want to increase my website traffic to a thousand unique visitors per day", second - " I want to increase my website traffic to a thousand unique visitors per day in three months" The first option, without clearly defined deadlines, looks more like a desire than a goal. Well, a person wants to increase traffic to his resource, so what? He can come to this only in five years. The second option is a different matter - there is a set deadline that will stimulate and encourage in every possible way. Surely the deadline was determined reasonably, and not taken from the ceiling, and therefore you will have to forget about laziness and work productively.

More, more specifics!

Goal adjustment

Be flexible! Just because you've set a goal doesn't mean you can't make adjustments as necessary. Anything can happen, circumstances may arise that can slow down or speed up the achievement of the goal, so you need to be prepared to adjust the goal. Remember that inertia in aspirations has never made anyone either successful or happy man. Life changes, and you must have time to change with it!

Attractiveness of the goal

The goal and the consequences that its achievement will lead to should attract you! Choose goals that attract, inspire and inspire you, otherwise “the game is not worth the candle.”

Believe that your goal is achievable

After formulating and setting a specific goal, you need to penetrate it and consolidate it in the subconscious. It happens that while consciously trying to achieve a goal, we are subconsciously not ready to achieve it. You can desire a goal, but deep down in your soul you don’t believe in its feasibility, you don’t believe in your abilities, or you simply consider yourself unworthy.

It is not enough to correctly formulate a goal, you need to charge it with the energy of confidence - this is the most important condition for readiness to achieve your goal.

All successful people, from television stars (Oprah Winfrey, Larry King...) and outstanding athletes (Michael Jordan, Fedor Emelianenko...), ending with politicians (Mitt Romney, Silvio Berlusconi, Arnold Schwarzenegger...) and businessmen (Richard Branson, Lakshmi Mittal...) achieved what they have thanks to the ability to correctly formulate and set goals.

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Have you ever wondered why some people get closer to their goal every day and achieve it in a very short period of time, while others simply live as they have to, without thinking much about the future? As a result, they meet old age, understanding that they do not have to brag about any special successes.

The answer to the question why this happens is very simple - the first people live according to their life plan, while others do not even think about it, but simply go with the flow of life. However, even the mere presence of such a plan does not guarantee success, because when drawing it up you can make a lot of mistakes, as a result of which they simply will not be of any use, you will only waste time in vain.

To prevent this from happening, right now Fotrader magazine will list 10 most important recommendations for making life plans, which were given by experts on planning and time management.

No. 1. Always start small

It’s always nice to fantasize that in a year you will have your own sports car and a two-story house, but your fantasies will not come true without your participation. It is much better to start planning your life from one day, writing down hourly what goals you should achieve.

It's simple and very convenient. The most important thing is that each such goal brings you closer to an even greater goal, even just one small step. Remember, there are 60 minutes in one hour, and every minute should be spent usefully.

Make a clear plan for the day and see how you manage to follow it, how effective your actions are.

No. 2. Determine what exactly you want to achieve in the near future

Alas, many of us often pursue certain goals, and when we achieve them, we understand that these were not their thoughts and desires at all, they were imposed from the outside, and therefore achieving them does not bring any pleasure. So stop right here and now and think about who you see yourself in the future.

Have you built a successful career? Have you become financially independent? Created a strong and happy family? After all, if one person dreams of becoming the head of a corporation, another dreams of a house in the forest, where it will be quiet and peaceful.

No. 3. Make a list of tasks that need to be completed

It is important not only to set goals, but also to identify the tasks that will lead to their achievement. First, identify areas of activity that are important to you that you need to work on, and then under each of them make a list of actions that will ensure results.

No. 4. Create plans for each period

For five years, 10 years, the rest of your life, and, of course, for six months and a year. Each list should be accompanied by a list of tasks, and you should have a plan for the next six months in your work, and now you should complete the tasks specified in it.

As for plans for a longer period, they should be hung on the wall, preferably so that they are constantly in front of your eyes, and you remember what you are working tirelessly for.

No. 5. Analyze your results

Don't just make a plan and complete tasks one after another, but analyze the results. Once a task is completed, it should be removed from the plan. How? Just cross it out. Once a certain period has been passed, you can easily analyze the results obtained - how many tasks you set for yourself, how many of them were completed, and which ones could not be completed and for what reasons.

#6: Don’t forget to set specific goals and objectives for yourself.

“I will lose weight someday in the future” or “I want to become slim” are not goals at all, but your desires. Goals are set differently - “I will lose 10 kg in 5 months,” or “I will wear my favorite dress in a month.”

The goal should have a specific deadline and be specific, not vague.

No. 7. Write down tasks in a notepad

All tasks and goals must be written down. If you once correctly formulated a goal, mentally identified tasks to achieve it, but forgot to write it all down, consider that you have not done anything useful. You will simply forget about this goal, and even sooner than you think. Record, record, record.

All goals simply must be on paper or in your notebook. If you don't like your handwriting, you can type the outline into Word and print it out. This will be even better, because you can hang it above your desk and you will always remember it.

No. 8. Be flexible

You are clearly confident that in five years you will buy an apartment, for example, in Istanbul. But then 5 years pass, you have saved up money for your goal, and are ready to fulfill your dream, when suddenly it begins in Turkey Civil War. And as luck would have it, its epicenter is in Istanbul. Of course, this example is conditional, and Fortrader experts hope that there will never be a war in Turkey. We say this to mean that life can make adjustments to our current plans, and you should be prepared for this.

And it doesn’t matter if instead of an apartment in Istanbul you move to your own house in Bulgaria, because you also like this country. You should not be afraid of changes and adjustments, because this is also part of our life. Not everything in it can be foreseen with 100% probability.

No. 9. Don't forget to encourage yourself

Of course, you should only include in your plan those tasks that will bring you closer to your goal. But this does not mean at all that you should not add a few pleasant “bonuses” to it.

For example, if you've always wanted to take a dance class, or visit Japan, but those goals don't align with your ultimate goal, include them in your plan anyway. The most important thing is that your entire plan does not consist of only “wants”. And pampering yourself from time to time is not a sin.

No. 10. Right now!

And finally, the last piece of advice is to make your plan and start following it right now. You will read the last line of this article and say: “Wow, what great tips! We’ll have to start drawing up a plan tomorrow.” But tomorrow comes, and you simply forget about it. Don’t put off this important task until “someday.”

Remember that the sooner you start making a plan for your life, the higher the likelihood that it will be conscious and planned.

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