The Golden Rule Of Goal Setting

Many people feel as if they're just drifting through life. They work hard, but they don't seem to get anywhere worthwhile. A key reason for feeling this way is that they haven't spent enough time thinking about what they want from life, and haven't set formal goals.

Although the majority of us do set goals, these goals tend to be too vague or too broad. Because of this reason, we don’t put in enough time, energy, and effort into it since we don’t really know where to begin when it comes to this goal.

For instance, you might hear someone say, “I have a goal of losing weight.” But you need to break down the goal and get more clarity.

Ask yourself questions such as - How much weight do you want to lose? In what time frame do you want to lose this weight? You could be 2 weeks into your weight loss journey and lose 1kg, does that mean you have already achieved the goal, and don’t need to continue to work on it? Probably not. The funny thing is, allot of people set goals this way and that’s why they are left frustrated and clueless.

So the reason I have named the title ‘The Golden Rule Of Goal Setting’ is because what I am about to share with you is what I believe to be the golden rule, and if done correctly you will be able fast track your journey of achieving your goals.

As simple as it may sound, the golden rule is: being SPECIFIC. Yep that’s all it is to it. When you set specific clear goals, you will have a clear vision and understanding of your goal and what action steps need to be taken.

For instance, vague and general goals would be:
“I want to gain more muscle.”
“I want to make more money.”
“I want to lose body fat.”

On the surface, there is nothing wrong with these goals - however the biggest issue with them is that they don’t give a clear idea on what actions you need to take to actually achieve them.

If your goal is just “I want to gain more muscle.” Then you need to dig deeper.
Are you going to bulk up first, or are you going to shred down, then build muscle? How much growth exactly do you want? Are you going to measure which parts of your body you want to grow?

An example of a more specific goal would be:
“I want to gain 2inches of muscle on my arms, and 5inches on my thighs by the end of this year.”

This goal is much more useful because it describes specifics. The more specific your goals are the better. Try to include a Who? What? When? Where? Why?approach to your goals to help improve their specificity.

You don’t have to limit your goals to one sentence either; an even better idea would be to write a step-by-step plan on how you will accomplish your goals. This simple act of writing them out in detail will automatically minimize a lot of the stress and disappointment of having vague (and unreachable) goals.

So here is an exercise for you to do now- Think of your current goal you have set for yourself and answer the following questions down below.

1) How long will it take you to accomplish this goal?

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2) What are you currently doing that’s making you closer to achieving your goal?

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3) What do you need to start doing daily to get you closer to achieving your goal?

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4) Is there something that you need to eliminate from your life that is stopping you from achieving your goal?

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Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future and for motivating yourself to turn your vision of your future into reality.

By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate your time, energy, and focus. It also makes it so much easier to begin the journey and gain the momentum of going after your goal.

I hope you found this article useful, thanks for reading!

If you would like a more in depth view of 'The Golden Rule Of Goal Setting', check out my New eBook that can be downloaded from Amazon Kindle https://bit.ly/RedefineYourselfebook

Elizabeth,
Co-founder, Freak Athletiq