Many business professionals and life coaches hammer on the topic of “goal setting” regularly and most of us have heard this term many times in our lives.

But what exactly is goal setting?

Is there a right and a wrong way to do goal setting?

Do we even have a clear understanding of what our goals are and if so, how do we go about accomplishing them in the shortest amount of time and achieving the most effective results?

In this post we will be covering:

• the different areas of our lives
• how to go about establishing SMART goals
• the most effective methods to do goal setting and
• what impact goal setting has on us on a mental level…

Impact Areas of Success

There are 4 basic impact areas when it comes to success in any situation:

• Conditioning  –  Our rules and personality

• State  –  Our physical and emotional demeanour

• Behaviour  –  What we do

• Results  –  The relationship between goals and outcomes

When we look specifically at behaviour, there are 3 factors that determine the success of any behaviour:

• Context  –  The context of behaviour relates to the circumstances and the environment in which the behaviour takes place.

• Confidence  –  The level of confidence with which we approach and execute any behaviour determines the success of the behaviour. We often refer to this confidence as “congruence”.

• Competence  –  Competence refers to the level of skill you have in the specific context of behaviour.

Areas Of Life

Imagine for a moment that the above is the “wheel of life”.  Let’s say that 0% is right in the middle of the wheel and 100% is at the outer edge of the circle.

If you were to take this “wheel of life” and colour in the area of each of these areas of life to reflect the satisfaction and success you have in each area, what would yours look like?

Now imagine that this wheel had to run on a car… Would it be a smooth ride?  I think it would be very unlikely.  More so, how much energy would it take to get and keep a car moving if it had to run on wheels that looked like the one you just coloured in?

And yet we as people often wonder why we feel so run down and without energy on a regular basis.

You need a way to “round your wheel off” and create balance in your life so that you are putting your time, energy, and focus into all the areas that matter most to you so you can produce the results you truly desire.

Creating A SMART Goal

When we create goals, many of us go about it the wrong way.

Remember that FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION.

What is meant with this is that we need to identify the function of our goals first.  When this has been done the manner in which we will achieve these goals will become clear to us, almost automatically.

A goal is: An outcome with a specific end in mind.

When creating a goal make it a S.M.A.R.T. one:

Ask yourself the following questions when thinking of your desired goal:

• What is my specific outcome / RESULT?
• Why do I wish to achieve this goal? (What is my PURPOSE?)
• What is my MAP? (How am I going to get there?)

          M – Method
          A – Action
          P – Plan