Personal Goals

Online course:
Personal Goals - click to preview

What are my goals in life?

If you find this question difficult to answer, then you need to think about it hard,and soon. Here are some questions that may help you think about this very important subject:

• What are the five things I value most in my life?
• What would I do if I won a million pounds tomorrow?
• What would I change if I discovered I had 6 months to live?
• What have I always wanted to do but been too afraid to try?
• What have I always wanted to do but not got round to doing?
• What have I always wanted to do but not had time to do?
• In all my life, what activity makes me feel the best (mentally)?
• What one thing would I do if I knew I could not fail?
• What makes me wake up thinking Great, it's.... today!
• What epitaph would I want written on my gravestone?
• What would I like to spend my time doing when I retire?
• Whose personality or lifestyle do I envy, and why?
• What do I wish to avoid?
• and, how can I rephrase this in the positive?
• What am I good at?

Setting Personal and Work Objectives:

You may have heard of SMART goals – Specific, Measurable (do these mean almost the same thing?), Achievable, Realistic (do these also mean pretty much the same?) and Time-Bounded. Well here is an alternative way of refining your goals and making them into the most effective format: CEPD.

1. Challenging - only just achievable - To be effective, your goals will have to be big enough to be a 'step change', a significant step forward, to kick your subconscious into gear. Half-hearted goals will not motivate you to take action. Goals need to be believable and achievable, but only just. You can achieve anything you want to, providing:

• you really want to do/have/be it,
• you can clearly imagine having achieved it,
• you believe you can do it
• and are prepared to do the work required.

2. Emotional and Exciting - Goals need to be things you really want; things that you can get excited about. We'd all quite like a Ferrari, but do you know all about Ferraris? Have you taken one for a test drive? Similarly, do your work goals really excite you?

Note: Money is something that most people want, but the real goal is what you would use the money for. Whether it be a new house, the ability to impress your friends, or the security of having money in the bank, this is what will really motivate you to take action.

3. Positive - Negative goals cannot be visualised by your subconscious and therefore cannot be acted upon. They need to be turned around, into positive goals:

Negative goals	Positive equivalents
To watch less TV	What will you do instead of watching TV? e.g. to read for one hour each evening, take up tennis.
To reduce the number of customer complaints	What actions will you take?
To have less stress in my life	What are your current causes of stress, and what actions can you see yourself taking to reduce them?
To give up smoking	To hate the taste of cigarettes and to be able to say no when offered one.

4. Detailed - Being specific helps the process of visualising, and begins the process of planning. The more detail you add, the more clearly your subconscious will be able to visualise the goal and begin to work towards it:

Vague goals	Questions to help define the goals
To make more money	How much more money? What would the money be used for?
To be a better person	Better person in what way? How will you know you've achieved it?
To improve my quality of life	What activities and situations give you quality of life?
To spend more time with the kids	What time of day would this be? Doing what?
To write a book	A book on what subject? Completed by when? Where would you write it?
To travel the world	Which countries? How will you get there? Which towns? Where will you stay?

Are you ready to go one step further? The online course features over 2 hours of video instruction and a series of interactive diagnostic tools. Click here for more information.

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