Goal Setting Is Your Road Map To Success

There is an old saying that if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. To put it another way, if you want to achieve goals, you have to define them first. Then you have to establish a way to reach them. Those are the two basic premises of goal setting. Next, you should divide your goals into three types. Short term ones are those you can achieve in six months to a year. Intermediate goals are those up to seven years in the future. Long term plans are any that will take more than seven years to realize.

After you have defined your aims and established a rough time estimate, it is time to work on a more detailed plan. Examine what you must provide in time as well as money and how you will secure both. Decide on benchmarks you can use to check your progress. As you go, you can then change your plans if you are missing your targets so that the end remains the same.

An example of a short term goal might be to save $600 in six months. The first thing you must do is see if your budget can stand an average of $100 a month. If it can, all you need do is enter savings as a line item and transfer the funds to your savings account. If, however, there is not enough income to handle it, you have to formulate a plan to generate the revenue. For some, this may mean volunteering for overtime or even taking a part time job. Others may be able to reduce spending in another category. But you have to decide how you are going to accomplish your aim.

Perhaps you plan to go into business for yourself in seven years. This would be an intermediate goal. You should start planning now. Where will funding come from? Lay out a detailed financial plan. Is your skill set sufficient for running your own business? Maybe an accounting course or one in marketing would be helpful. If you are in doubt on the basics, such as how to incorporate, are there local groups who offer this kind of mentoring? In this example, you are establishing a plan to fund your enterprise as well as improving your skills.

Maybe you just bought a home but would like to pay it off in 15 years despite the 30 year mortgage. You go online to find a tool to calculate the amortization and show you just what you have to do. Next you budget the extra amounts you will need to pay. You review your loan documents to see if there is a prepayment penalty, and if so, look into refinancing. In this case, you have had to perform research and plan finances to create a game plan.

Never set goals that you cannot possibly reach. This will quickly lead to frustration and perhaps abandonment of the project. If your desire is to lose 50 pounds, do not make it your goal to do so in one month. It simply will not happen, nor should it. If you earn $30,000 annually, you will not be able to save $35,000 of it. Be realistic in the tasks you set for yourself.

Make a list of all your goals, set a completion date, and detail all that is required to accomplish them. Review it frequently to see how you are doing, and check your benchmarks. These can be financial, such as verifying that you have saved one thousand dollars during a two year span. Or they can be something along the lines of taking a course in typing within the first twelve months. If you have come up short, determine why and change the plan so you can reach them.

Few successful people do not practice goal setting of some type. Think about driving across country. You would want a map to show you where the roads are. Goal setting is just a map, pointing the way to a successful end.