Setting goals can change your life.

In our busy and fast-paced lives, it’s has become essential that we set goals. Goals are important for any aspect -career, job, family, personal growth- and they can help us to succeed. Once a year would be enough to sit down and write all our goals for short, medium and long term. According to Mark Murphy’s research, people who write or picture their goals are more likely to accomplish them than people who don’t.

Experts explain that once we have decided what we want to achieve our brain will start to work to get that, because “the brain is a goal-seeking organism,” Jack Canfield points out in his blog.
But how you can choose your goals? It is widely recommended to have SMART goals. That means that your goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time bounded.

Specific: You should think about concrete targets, what exactly are you going to do? Generalizations are unhelpful, you should be precise and detailed. Firstly, it is important to begin with small steps and then, if you get those, you would be able to get your bigger goal.

Measurable: It is necessary to set dates or amounts. That will help you to know how much time do you have or how much money do you have to earn and then, you will be able to organize yourself.

Achievable: It is very important to understand that your goals are not going to become truth overnight. You have to set targets that could be completed with your skills, environment and other relevant factors. If you set almost impossible goals, that could be prejudicial for your success and you will be disappointed.

Relevant: You should think about goals that are going to help you and that could be beneficial for your purpose. Don’t waste time planning and working to get some goals that are not going to be important for your final target.

Time bounded: decide how much time do you need to set your goal and set a specific date to complete it. That will encourage you to keep working hard every day to get your goal.

Catherine Moore adds that “after you’ve formalized them by writing them down, rank them on a scale of 1-5 or 1-10, or whatever works for you”. That will allow you to decided what is the first goal that you need to get and work focus on it. Otherwise, you would be disorientated doing different things at the same time and it will be more difficult to achieve your goals.

But what happens if you cannot get your goal on time? Don’t panic. Sometimes we cannot plan everything and some situations are out of our control. The important thing is not to give up and make the necessary changes to continue to find your aim. Maybe you can extend the term to get your purpose or modify your plans.

“Goal-setting is not only about choosing the rewards you want to enjoy, but also the costs you are willing to pay”, explains James Clear in his blog. Sometimes, while we are working to find our objectives we would have to do difficult actions but the important thing is to think about how we are going to feel when we finally will get our goals. That surely will provoke us huge happiness. Don’t worry if you don’t get your aims for the first time, good things take time.

“The only limit to the height of your achievements is the reach of your dreams and your willingness to work for them”. -Michelle Obama.

-Diana Giambona