Explanations of GOAL, GOAL Setting Techniques, SMART GOAL

What is Goal ?

1. Thinking about your ideal future
2.  Goal helps you choose where you want to go in life
3. Goal helps you to know where you have to concentrate your efforts
   

Goal Process

Why Set Goals?

1. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation

      2. You will also raise your self-confidence as you recognize your own ability and competence in             achieving the goals that you've set. 

Goal Setting Technique?

        You set your goals on a number of levels:

1. First you create your "big picture" of what you want to do with your life (or over, say, the next 10 years) and identify the large-scale goals that you want to achieve.
2. Then, you break these down into the smaller and smaller targets that you must hit to reach your lifetime goals.
3. Finally, once you have your plan, you start working on it to achieve these goals.

Step 1: Setting Lifetime Goals

1. Setting lifetime goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making.
2. Try to set goals in some of the following categories:

Career – What level do you want to reach in your career, or what do you want to achieve? 

Financial – How much do you want to earn, by what stage? How is this related to your career goals? 

Education – Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular? What information and skills will you need to have in order to achieve other goals? 

Family – Do you want to be a parent? If so, how are you going to be a good parent? How do you want to be seen by a partner or by members of your extended family? 

Artistic – Do you want to achieve any artistic goals? 

Attitude – Is any part of your mindset holding you back? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you? (If so, set a goal to improve your behavior or find a solution to the problem.) 

Physical – Are there any athletic goals that you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this? 

Public Service – Do you want to make the world a better place? If so, how? 

Step 2: Setting Smaller Goals

1. Once you have set your lifetime goals, set a five-year plan of smaller goals that you need to complete if you are to reach your lifetime plan.
2. Then create a one-year plan, six-month plan, and a one-month plan of progressively smaller goals that you should reach to achieve your lifetime goals. Each of these should be based on the previous plan.
3.  Then create a daily To-Do List, of things that you should do today to work towards your lifetime goals.

Staying on Course

1. Once you've decided on your first set of goals, keep the process going by reviewing and updating your To-Do List on a daily basis.
2. Periodically review the longer term plans, and modify them to reflect your changing priorities and experience. (A good way of doing this is to schedule regular, repeating reviews using a computer-based diary.)

SMART Goals

• A useful way of making goals more powerful is to use the SMART mnemonic

1. SMART usually stands for:

• S – Specific (or Significant).
• M – Measurable (or Meaningful).
• A – Attainable (or Action-Oriented).
• R – Relevant (or Rewarding).
• T – Time-bound (or Trackable).

Example of SMART Goal

For example, instead of having "to sail around the world" as a goal, it's more powerful to use the SMART goal "To have completed my trip around the world by December 31, 2020." Obviously, this will only be attainable if a lot of preparation has been completed beforehand! 

Further Tips for Setting Your Goals

1. Be precise: Set precise goals, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure achievement.
2. Set priorities – When you have several goals, give each a priority.
3. Write goals down – This crystallizes them and gives them more force.
4. Keep operational goals small –Keeping goals small and incremental, gives more opportunities for reward.
5. Set realistic goals – It's important to set goals that you can achieve. All sorts of people (for example, employers, parents, media, or society) can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions.

Student Activity

If you don't already set goals, do so, starting now. As you make this technique part of your life, you'll find your career accelerating, and you'll wonder how you did without it!

Author: Shahzaib Naz