The Secret to Successful Goal Setting for Changing Times: Seven Steps to Achieving Your Dreams

1. Successful Goal Setting Requires Thinking About Your Goals
   
   You are told how to think and what to think about each and every day. From when we get up in the morning until we go to sleep at night, television, radio, personal computer, family, friends, managers, and colleagues tell us how to think, feel, and act.
   
   Invest time fifteen minutes to an hour to think. Turn off all the external distractions, go to a quiet place (home, park, etc.), and think about your goals and how you want to accomplish them. Think about how you will feel when accomplishing them.
   
   Your goal-setting thinking session should also include how you will benefit from these changing times. What special skills do you have or need to acquire to take advantage of these changing times?

1. Successful Goal Setting Requires Writing Your Goals
   
   Nothing happens in goal setting unless you write your goals and put these goals on paper. Put a pen to paper and you are ahead of all ninety-five percent of other people because they do not write down their goals and then wonder why they are unhappy in their business, their career, and their life. Take the time to write down your goals. It doesn't need to be perfect the first time; successful goal setting is an ongoing process that will change as you accomplish your goals.

1. Successful Goal Setting Requires Shorter Time Periods
   
   Break the length for your goals into shortened time periods. This allows you adjust as needed in changing times. For example, break your goals into twenty-year, ten-year, five-year, one-year, six-month, monthly, weekly, and daily increments. This will allow you to gauge whether you are on course to accomplishing your goals, or whether you need to make adjustments to get back on track.

1. Successful Goal Setting Requires Flexible Goals
   
   You need to be flexible when goal setting more than ever in the past. As the world changes, planning for these changes is essential. An opportunity that is there today might not be there tomorrow. What are you going to do with shifting opportunities? When setting goals, successful people have a Plan A, Plan B, and even a Plan C for these changing times. Take time to think about what changes might happen in your business, your career, and your life and develop plans to overcome these obstacles.

1. Successful Goal Setting Requires Passion
   
   Do your goals make you excited? If they do not, you are not setting goals high enough. Set your goals so that you are excited about accomplishing them. When you are excited about your goals, you create positive energy, and the energy creates passion. With this passion, you will find ways to remove any barriers to your success.

1. Successful Goal Setting Requires Embracing Technology
   
   Many times in our workshops, we run across students for whom technology is a barrier to their success. Their jobs or industries have changed so that being proficient in technology is a requirement. Yet, these students resist learning the new technologies required for their success. Include a section on what technologies you will learn in your goal setting so that you are successful. Overcome your fear and challenge yourself through these goals to learn how to master new technologies.

1. Successful Goal Setting Requires Balance
   
   In these changing times, you are asked to do more with less. Whether in your business, your career, your community, or your family, you have ever increasing requests for your time and talents. Unless you include balance in your goal setting, someone else will create unbalance in your life which leads to stress and possibly illness. Take back control of your life with successful goal setting. Make sure you set goals in the following areas:
   
   
   • Family
   • Health
   • Education
   • Technology
   • Spiritual
   • Career
   • Community
   • Business (if needed)
   I am sure you can think of some others; however, these form the foundation of your goal-setting activities. Master these areas to be successful in achieving more in less time while staying in control.