We all have individual goals that serve as motivation to succeed and accomplish things in our life. We can have as many goals as we want and they vary on which aspect of our life we wish to provide satisfaction.
The Value of Goal Setting
Having a clear set of goals allows us to focus on a single path to achieving our aims at the end of the road. They give us a sense of direction in life. Some people live their lives astray as they don’t have clear-cut goals that they wish to attain. What they do instead is just live it according to how the environment and forces of nature dictate it to be.
You may think or it may sound easy that goal setting is an easy process but if there is lack of motivation to work on your goals, you have a tendency to fail. To start with, it is important to understand the basics of goal setting. Knowing the various types of goals is essential to a more focused endeavor. Here we will talk about personal goals in the various aspects of our lives, as well as goals that have a particular purpose.
Types of Goals in Various Aspects of Life
1. Physical goals
Any goal or objective that has something to do with physical wellbeing and overall health condition belongs to your physical goals. Examples of this type of goals are losing weight, gaining pounds, skin whitening, enhancing looks, and the like.
2. Career Goals
This type of goal is one of the most important individual goals we need to make. We have to plan our career and envision our future career path. Examples of career goals would include the company you want to work for in a long-term period, the kind of position you wish to attain, and your personal skills and abilities.
3. Financial Goals
These goals pertain to financial planning that will include retirement, ideal home, ideal car, vacation plans, and educational plans for the children.
4. Relationship & Family Goals
We all have plans of making good interpersonal relationships with family and friends. We aim to keep long-lasting friendships and make new ones. Part of this type of goal is planning for your spouse and how you envision yourselves in the future, along with how you want your children to be in the future.
5. Personality and Spiritual Goals
These are the goals that are aimed at developing general wellbeing as an individual in the mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual aspects. Some examples are breaking free from old habits and ironing out undesirable attitude and behavior.
Types of Goals according to Degree and Manner
1. Achievement Goals
Your major and long-term goals are examples of achievement goals. They are geared toward desirable outcomes after completing the goal.
2. Action Goals
These are the specific action items that need to be taken in achieving your goals. Examples are joining a workshop to acquire new skills, meeting a client to close a business deal, and resolve customer issues to attain customer satisfaction.
3. Limit Goals
These goals present limitations and boundaries in your plans so that you can manage your priorities.
4. Rate Goals
Goals under this type involve recurring actions over time such as hitting the sauna once a week, going to the cinema twice a month, or updating the journal daily.
5. Exclusion Goals
These are restrictions in what you do. You make these goals to stop yourself from doing a thing that will not turn out to be beneficial for you. Examples of this type are refraining from overspending, avoiding junk foods, not watching the television after 9PM, and not using the phone during a conversation with someone.
6. Layered Goals
The term is called layered goals because these are goals that have assigned priorities. This type of goal helps you to maximize your performance beyond small accomplishments. Depending on your needs as well as the difficulty of the goal, you can make specific priorities for each.
7. Incredible Goals
This type of goal is highly ambitious, optimistic, and it describes future success and huge accomplishments. An example of an incredible goal is a personal vision of becoming the CEO of a large company. Incredible goals need to be backed up by achievement goals in order to be attained.
A very essential factor in your personal and professional life is goal setting. Goals are objectives, aims, and targets in order to achieve what you want to achieve. For e.g.in sports, the goal of every competing team is winning the game. Goal setting is a process of reaching such goals, usually in a futuristic action plan in order to shape your ideal future and transform that vision into a reality.
The process of goal setting in your life helps you decide on how to live your life, where you want to be, and how you want to be in the near future. One factor to consider in goal setting is the timeframe of the goals. There are goals that may be achieved only on a short-term basis; there are those that require long-term period. Short-term goals are suitable for plans that do not create a huge impact on your life while long-term goals are intended for future involving career, family, relationships with people, and way of living.
What is Involved in Goal Setting?
Although we have always associated goals with success, there are instances where goal setting may fail at a certain point in our lives. This is because some of us are not absolutely confident with the kind of goal we make and the way to treat each one of them. Goal setting involves three aspects:
1. Developing a new skill or honing an acquired skill
In the process of achieving your goals, you need to check your competencies and capabilities in reaching your aims. If there are skills you are weak at and these skills are needed in goal accomplishment, make it a point to develop that ability. Doing so will make it easier for you to go through the process of goal setting.
2. Getting rid of bad habits and replacing them with better ones
Bad habits are compared to rotten tomatoes that only serve as stumbling blocks in the road to success. Apart from having the right skills and attitude, you also need to look into your personal habits that are beneficial. A poorly managed way of living slows down the process of goal setting.
3. Attaining results or outcome and accomplishing one’s dreams
Accomplishing our dreams is the reason why we set goals in the things we do. Doing so you get a sense of satisfaction and contentment. Goals are achieved with an outcome that is favorable to us.
The Benefits of Goal Setting
Goals help to motivate and inspire a person to complete a task, go to places, land a good job, buy material possessions, and do just about anything that satisfies the individual. With a set of goals in whatever you do, there is a reason and benefit to work for it.
Our individual goals keep us on track with our day-to-day activities and give us a sense of determination to achieve what we think is important and valuable for us. With a definite set of goals, you know where to concentrate your actions. Distractions are easily spotted since you have a clear path of where you are going and you are motivated enough to reach the end of the road without getting sidetracked by unnecessary interruptions.
