GUIDELINES FOR PERSONAL GOALS
Some guidelines or criteria for identifying personal goals and making them work are listed here. These guidelines will make the task of personal goal setting more useful and satisfying.
1. Your Goals Must Be Your Own.
You are more likely to accomplish personal and internal goals that you set for yourself than if you strive to achieve goals others want you to accomplish. This does not mean you cannot accept the goals of a spouse, friend, or boss as your own. You can do this, but your motivation is going to be stronger if you consciously think through, and talk through, the advantages and disadvantages of working toward a goal and make your own decision to pursue it. This has powerful implications for dealing with other people, be they customers, lovers, children, subordinates, or friends. If you give yoursel or others time to talk and think a goal through, commitment is bound to be higher. And remember that knowledge of who we are and what we desire is essential so we can establish goals based on our own internalized values.
Even if an accomplishment does not aid other people, it is important to the owner. For example, there is little value to some people in winning a prize for the best dessert at the couny fair or in writing the best book report. Winning, however, may be very important to the cook or writer for building his self-esteem or for keeping him trying. The most constructive goals for you are those you have decided on for yourself.
2. Goals Need To Be Clear, Concrete, and Written Down
The purpose of writing goals is to clarify and make them concrete for yourself. Writing and revising goals also forces you to make a commitment to yourself. Once a goal is written you have more invested in it than before it was written and this develops commitment. Writing helps to keep the goal in front of you and reduces the possibility it will be forgotten as new problems and new challenges appear. Written goals also enable you to integrate your goals into projects and to identify conflicting goals. If you intend to take personal goal setting seriously, you must write down your goals and review them several times.
3. Start with Short-Range Goals
Learning involves making mistakes as well as achieving success. Start your goal setting by workin on some short-range goals that are easily attainable. As these are accomplished, you will gain more and more confidence to tackle more challenging long-range goals.
Short-range goals also are more likely to be within your own control. Do not be concerned if the first statement of goals is broad or unclear. But start with goals covering days, weeks, or months, rather than years. You will improve your probability of success.
4. Consider Legality, Morality, and Ethics in Your Goals
Most people's value systems include some degree of concern with the legality, morality, and ethics of their actions. You should consider these issues before you commit yourself to a goal. It sometimes help to answer your question "How will I feel when this goal is accomplished?" Is your goal legal in your society? If is is not, are you willing to pay the price society imposes for accomplishing it if you are caught? Does it really fit with your moral and ethical beliefs? If it does not, are you willing to endure the self-inflicted guilt and the pressure imposed by others if you accomplish the goal?
5. Goals Require Realism and Should Be Attainable
Having a goal is the first step to action, but if it is unrealistic or unattainable, it is not even a goal but pure fantasy and daydreaming. Saying goals must be realistic is not saying they should be low, but they must represent a reasonable objective toward which you are willing and able to work. Also, there is no paradox in having goals that are both high and realistic. The higher the goal, the stronger the motivation. But if you do not believe accomplishment is possible, there is probably no motivation.
The question of attainability is a difficult one. Our society is changing so fast that predictability is uncertain. Who judges attainability? Each individual has to judge it for himself. If it feels right to you, and if it makes sense to you and your respected friends, then it is possible.
The most common hazard facing people beginning goal setting is overambition. It feels so exciting and good to set goals that we tend to set too many for too shore a period of time. A good guideline is to cut your first list in half; then if you have more than six, keep cutting the list down until you have only three to six new goals to work on at one time.
6. Specific Time Deadlines Aid in Accomplishment of Goals
Assigning target dates for completing each step of a plan provides constant reinforcement and a sense of accomplishment that helps sustain your motivation. Dates can, and should, be adjusted with changed conditions to be more realistic, but they are an important part of setting goals. A target date should be part of any written goal.
To sum up these guidelines, the most effective goals are personal, written, have time deadlines, are within your control, have their consequences thought through, and arebased on your personal values. Goals can be revised constantly to become more realistic.