The last few days I’ve really been focusing on goal setting as a means to increase efficiency and improve your personal or professional success (see my posts on setting daily goals, setting weekly goals, and setting monthly goals). Personally, I set goals for myself every day and I truly believe that a large reason why I have become as successful as I have is because I am constantly striving to meet those goals. It’s important to me to meet these goals, as each time I do I am a little bit closer to achieving my overall goal (to strike it rich and retire young… seriously).

I know that every self-help book on the planet talks about goal setting, but I don’t think that they really hit the nail on the head. Goal setting, as a life choice, is not something that should be a chore or something that you need to dedicate time for. Goal setting is as simple as finding something that you like, such as a nice car or a vacation, and saying to yourself “I want that.” After that, breaking down how you’re going to achieve your goal is also quite simple.

My goals are always broken down so that the individual components are easier to accomplish, making the goal itself easier to accomplish.

For example:

Goal: Purchase a low-mileage 1994 Toyota MR2 turbo.

Components:

• Affording the car
  • $12,000 - $15,000 estimated cost.
  • Save $2,000 per month for the next 8 months.
  • Generate an extra $2,000 per month in revenue.
    • Increase traffic to CommunicateBetter.org.
    • Increase return on investment (ROI) from current marketing campaigns.

• Finding the car
  • Find good examples on eBay or MR2-Trader.
  • Search locally as well as internationally.

Time line: 7-9 months.

For this goal I’ve taken the larger goal of buying the car and have broken it down into sub goals, such as ways to afford the car and ways to find the car. This type of goal setting will allow me to focus on one specific task at a time, yet it will continue to drive me to the same end result. I find it easier to manage and accomplish, and you may as well.

Effective Goal Setting Techniques

I could blab all day about why goal setting is important, why you should do it, etc., but chances are good that if you’re reading this you’re already well aware of why goal setting is an important part of becoming successful. If you didn’t know that before, now you do.

I’ve received quite a few e-mails about my series of goal setting articles (e-mail me at general@affiliateweb.org) pointing out a couple of flaws associated with goal setting. The most popular ones are:

1. Time consumption - A lot of people have expressed that setting goals takes up too much time. I disagree with this sentiment a lot, as setting the right goals simply comes down to desires and needs. I’ll talk about this mroe in a moment.
2. Myopia - One common question I get is “why don’t I just set my goal to be something like making a million dollars?” Well, why don’t you? If you set your goals up right you very well could make a million dollars.

Both of those statements can be addressed by simply creating your goals properly. Knowing how to set up your goals will make the process only take a few minutes, and setting them up in a proper hierarchy will ensure that one day you can make a million dollars.

When setting goals, it’s generally a good idea to follow these techniques:

1. Determine what’s important - Your largest goals should be made first. If your main goal is to make a million dollars, that would be your main goal (or umbrella goal).
2. Determine the steps necessary to achieve your main goals - How are you going to accomplish your main goal? Outline the steps here, as well as how you plan to achieve those steps. This breaks down larger goals into smaller ones that are more manageable and easier to achieve.
3. Set goals that are appropriate - Focus on what you will be able to achieve and build up from your successes. Instead of aiming too high initially and becoming discouraged when you don’t achieve them, aim toward something that is achievable and ambitious, and build up on that once you’ve accomplished it.
4. Set timelines for your goals - Give yourself a deadline. Work to complete your goals within that deadline. The human mind responds to pressure, so never let up.

Those four relatively simple techniques keep goal setting effective, reducing the time that it takes to do so or the limitations that are placed on them.

Good luck, and never forget what you’re striving towards!