Can you imagine a future where you’re successful? Where you’re in control of your life? Where you are content with all that you’ve accomplished, and have found real happiness? If you can imagine this glorious future, you’ve already taken the first step toward making it a reality. All you need to do now is set your goals.

Goal setting puts you in charge of your fate. It empowers you to take your life in the direction of your choosing, and it provides the motivation you need to get there. It’s all about knowing what you want and putting all of your energy into obtaining it while identifying and avoiding the things that distract you and slow you down.

Your self-esteem also benefits from goal setting. Once you’ve set goals and proven to yourself that you can achieve them, you’ll experience a level of self-confidence that few of us ever enjoy. Let’s learn more about focusing your effort on the goals that you’ve set for yourself

Bringing Success Into Focus

Perhaps you’ve heard of the power of positive thinking; the Law of Attraction; affirmative visualizations. They might sound like gimmicks, but they are actually proven strategies used by top CEOs, politicians, athletes, and world leaders. By setting specific, sharply focused goals, you are giving your success a head-start.

Who is more likely to reach their goal: an idle wanderer who doesn’t really know where they are going, or a well-prepared traveler with a clear destination and a roadmap in hand? It doesn’t matter if your goal is monetary, athletic, or personal; to reach it, you have to have a plan. Your goals are your roadmap to success. Chart your progress and take pride in every step that brings you closer to your goals.

An Introduction to Goal Setting

When you first begin to set goals for yourself, look at the big picture first. What is your ultimate goal? Do you want to be wealthy? Be a better spouse? Get in shape? You need to have a firm idea of where you want to go in life before you can break down your goal into the smaller steps you’ll need to take in order to get there.

The Big Picture: Life Goals

What do you want to achieve in your lifetime? It’s not an easy question to answer because it involves all the different facets of your life. If you focus solely on your career, you risk having an unbalanced personal life. If you focus too much on providing for others, you risk neglecting your own needs and desires. Here are some of the most common life goal categories to consider when planning your balanced future:

Creative. This could be painting a portrait, learning to play an instrument, writing a book, or any artistic goal that you want to achieve.

Personal Development. Are you the kind of person you want to be, or do you sabotage your own efforts at personal growth? Do you feel good about the way you treat other people? If you want to improve yourself, set a personal development life goal.

Career and Education. What’s your dream job – not one that merely provides a paycheck, but one that gives you a sense of pride and fulfillment? Have you always dreamed of obtaining a college degree, or a doctorate? Consider your career and education goals when you imagine your future success.

Monetary. Do you want to be financially secure, wealthy, or rich? How much money do you want to make by age 30? Age 50? How will you generate this level of income?

Relationships. If you want to be a good son or daughter, a good spouse, a good parent, and a good friend, set life goals that will improve your personal relationships.

Health and Fitness. Do you want to lose weight? Get in shape? Run a marathon or compete in athletic tournaments? What small steps can you take to reach these goals?

Community. Charity is a virtue. Do you want to invest in your community and help people in need? Do you want to donate time or money to a worthy cause? How can you make the world a better place for yourself and others?

Personal Enjoyment. What makes you happy? Do you want to incorporate more pleasurable activities into your life? From gardening to sailing to socializing with friends, you can have more personal enjoyment by making it a life goal.

The secret to reaching these big goals is breaking them down into manageable sizes. Pick one goal from each category. Make sure it’s the one you want more than any other. Then compare all of your life goals. Are some of them redundant? Do some of them far surpass the others in terms of importance? Did you choose some simply because you feel they are expected of you? Pare down your list into a small number of really significant goals – the ones you just can’t live without. These are the ones you’ll be focusing on with every ounce of energy and commitment.

The Path to Achievement

Now it’s time to break your goals into smaller steps. Imagine the actions you’ll need to take to make significant progress in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, and beyond. Now make those steps attainable by planning a course of action to meet those smaller goals. What can you do in one week to bring you closer to your goal? Where can you be in one month? In six months?

Write down every detailed step along your path to success. For example, your one week to-do list might include research and self-reflection. In that case, you’d need to find information, learn from it, and take some time to reflect on what you learned. Small steps lead to big victories.

People are dynamic, so don’t be surprised if your goals change over time. Periodically review your life goals and modify them as needed.

How to Set Effective Goals

It’s important to keep the right attitude while pursuing your life goals. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

Stay Positive. Write down what you want to do, not what you don’t want to do. An example of a positive goal is “Be a more attentive parent”. A negative goal would be “Don’t ignore the kids.” Stay positive to facilitate positive changes in your life.

Be Specific. Map out every detail so that you can measure your progress. Keep a specific goal in mind, along with the amounts of each mini-goal and the precise dates that you want to achieve these goals.

Prioritize. Too many goals can feel overwhelming. Still, if you can’t mark any off your list, you can at least prioritize them. Focus most of your energy on your most important life goals.

Keep a Journal. When you put your goals into written words, you give them a tangible form. You can look at them, imagine them, and eventually realize them.

Take Small Steps. Your mini-goals should be just that: tiny steps toward the larger life goal. Give yourself plenty of small tasks to accomplish, and your confidence will soar when you find that you’re able to achieve so much.

Keep it Personal. We can’t control the external influences in our life, but we can control how we react to them. For example, you might dream of being a high-level executive in your company, but a corporate takeover could put you out of a job. Focus instead on your personal performance. You might not become a high-level executive in that company, but you could strive to be a valued employee at another company – or become an entrepreneur.

Most importantly, never try to live up to someone else’s expectations. Television and movies would have us believe that we all need to be gorgeous, rich, and powerful in order to have any fun in life. What rubbish! Strive to be the best person you can be, and understand that that’s enough.