Effective Personal Goal Setting

Where do I start with effective personal goal setting??

Do I even need to write personal goals? If you don't have a map of where you are going - who knows where you will end up. Why goal setting is important

If you are unsure of what your goals are or what you should be doing, start with writing out what the life of your dreams would be. After you have completed that task, narrow it down and rank the items picking out your top 10 - 20 items.

To set effective personal goals you need to meet five criteria for setting effective goals: express goals positively; set measurable goals; prioritize the goals; write down the goals, and keep the goals realistic.

So for an example I will write down "I will have a profitable internet business making $3000 a month by the end of 2009".

What makes this an effective personal goal? It is very realistic, many other people are making money on the internet - why can I? and why can't you? It is measureable, I know I will be successful when I am making $3000 per month. It also gives me a vision in my mind of what a successful home business will be like. I also have a timeline. Setting a deadline for yourself is a wonderful motivator in order to reach your goals.

The Why After writing the goals it's important to ask yourself why. Why do you want to acomplish this goal? Write that down too, it will help keep your motivation level high toward completing your goal. If I didn't have a reason as to why I wanted a profitable internet business I wouldn't have much of a reason to work at it. Cutting pictures out of a magazine is an excellent motivator - looking at that new car, vacation destination or whatever it is that you desire is a sure way to keep working.

Take some time to set a few personal goals. They can be major goals, some that would take years to complete or minor goals that take only a few weeks or days to complete. I like to write out both, as the feeling of accomplishment of completing small goals provides the motivation to keep going on the major goals. After you have written out your goals, you need to place them in a spot where you can read it aloud at least twice a day and visualize yourself already having those goals. You will program your mind towards having what you want and attract what you need to get there. In programming your mind you can also use positive self talk to help achieve your goals. For extra mind programming you can repeat positive affirmations for goal setting. They help to program your mind with more of what you want, not with what you don't want.

Take Action! After setting your personal goals you need to break them down into action lists. Just writing and dreaming about what you want will not get it for you. The Law of Attraction may have you believing you can just day dream about your perfect life and it will happen, but without action it is not going to happen. Say you don't know where to start with one of your goals. Your first action could be go to the library to find a book on the topic or talk to someone who is already successful in that area and get advice from them. Then you need to break the large task down into smaller actions and make a list of tasks to complete you can have daily tasks, weekly or monthly, just find whatever works for you.

It is important to make lists as moms, we tend to get so busy taking care of everything and everyone else that you can remember what your priorities are. You can have a personal celebration and pat yourself on the back everytime you cross something off your list. I set a personal challenge for myself to complete at least three items towards my goal per day, even if it is just sending an email. You will be amazed at all you can accomplish using this method.

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