Goals give you direction and help you to stay motivated in your everyday life. Coming up with goals and writing them down may seem like a pointless exercise but, apart from gaining a sense of direction, setting goals have many other benefits:
- Helps you to Identify your strengths and weaknesses
- Provide a sense of accomplishment when goals have been achieved
- Goals challenge your comfort zones and motivate you to develop
- Help you priorities. If you have goals, you will focus on the things you want to achieve and avoid getting distracted by 'less' important things
- We feel responsible for our own successes and failures if we have clear goals
In order for us to feel the benefits, we should know what goals are and how to formulate them effectively.
Setting goals
Remember that goals are not just for the workplace. They can be applied to many other areas of your life such as family, friends, financial, household, education, health and leisure activities. Consider what it is that you want to achieve in your lifetime (keep in mind that these should be your goals, not those of your family or manager). Write them down and rank them in priority.
Goal setting and achievement are lifelong processes. Remember that your goals will change as you get older and as your needs change. Also, no one achieves all their goals, so don’t worry if you don’t achieve all of them.
Most importantly, take the time to enjoy and celebrate the goals that you do achieve.
