Choosing The Right Goals

At some point, we have all set goals that have the best intentions. However, as much as we try, we often struggle and end up returning to the bad habits that we were trying to remove from our lives. What then happens, is we feel like we have failed which can put us off starting again.

It is the habit of setting poor goals that we need to break. To choose the right goals, we first need to reflect on our lives to find where actual improvements can be made and use our strengths to help make the goals more achievable.

Evaluating your life to set the right goals

To help you reflect, I have created and provided a free tool to help you to evaluate the different areas of your life. I’ve designed this tool to help you to focus on building confidence in your strengths and set goals in the areas that you can improve. Please contact me to access this tool.

The free tool is designed to help you to assess your happiness with eight different aspects of your life. The eight areas have been chosen to cover all aspects of life, but feel free to adjust the wheel to make sure it relates to your needs. By creating a wheel of satisfaction, you can understand where the bumpy areas of your life may be. From there, you can work on the ways to increase your happiness and smooth out the wheel. Once you have decided on the areas of improvement, it is time to set goals that work for you.

Three tips for goal-setting success

Change the wording

Studies have shown that we are more likely to achieve success when we structure our goals to have a positive approach rather than avoidance energy. By setting your goal to strive a positive outcome, for example, to increase your exercise and activity levels to become fitter, you are more likely to reach this desirable result. If you structure your goal to avoid a negative outcome, e.g., to exercise more to lose weight to avoid health issues, then you may be less likely to achieve them.

Write your goals down

As mentioned before, written goals help to aid attainment. In another study, they found that people were 42% more likely to achieve their goals just by putting pen to paper. The reason behind this is writing goals down engages the left part of your brain that focuses on logic. With both the left and right-hand side of the brain working together you have a complete focus on achieving and seizing your goals.

Monitor your progress

Achieving your goals is unlikely to happen overnight. It will take time and perhaps a collection of smaller targets to help you to reach your goal. Make time in your diary to regularly sit down and reflect on your goals. Remember, it is natural to make mistakes or go off-target. However, with regular evaluations, you can help to maintain the progress towards the things you want.