Setting Personal Goals... How Important Is Goal Setting?

You say you have set your goals? Congratulations! Are they set for the right reason?

We set goals for short term objectives. Most of these objectives concern materialistic wants: money, and physical things.

Here is a suggestion to take a different point of view when working on goals.

Start with deciding what your life should be. Take some time to define your life five years from now. Here are some questions you might ask yourself.

What are my surroundings?

What kind of places am I in?

What am I feeling?

What are my emotions?

What types of people are around me?

What kind of feelings do I get from them?

What am I doing? Physically?

Where am I going? My future?

Where have I been?

Notice there are no questions dealing with money, or named places, or named people. The answers to these questions will provide you with attitudes, feelings, values, perceptions and other non-tangible ideas that make life worth living no matter where you are, who you are with, or what you are doing!

If we have created a lifestyle that we like, then the physical part of our lives will fit right in and accompany the lifestyle because it has to! 

My suggestion is to look at the lifestyle you want to create, and set your plan to achieve the lifestyle instead of the physical side of life most of us set our goals to achieve.

To go even deeper, define your values very clearly and make sure that your vision of your life in five years fits with your values.

Is it worth it?

You have heard the phrase 'plan your work and work your plan'? If you do not create your life by setting goals and a plan to reach them, someone is doing it for you. If you think about it, that is really scary! What kind of vision would some else have for you?

Think of it this way. Look back five years ago in your life. Are you today where you imagined you would be five years ago? Or are you where someone else imagined you would be?

Don't you think your life would dramatically improve if you made the plan instead of 'them'? Don't you think you might have a little more interest in your life than someone else?

I should hope so.

As the advertisement says so well:

Just do it!

Culled from: Miami Phillips (2007)