Goal setting

Knowing where we are headed in life can give us clarity and a sense of ease to help navigate our journey. Setting goals played a huge role in my success as an athlete and now as a Life Coach. An athlete’s life is very much dictated by major races or competitions to strive towards. I would sit down at the end of season break and set goals for the following year. I had my long-term goals; the Olympics, Commonwealth Games, World Championships and Ironman. Then the short-term ones; World Cups and National races. All my daily training was planned with these goals in mind. I had clarity, direction and purpose.

In my life now, I implement the practice of goal setting for direction and motivation. I feel an inner peace knowing I have a plan and I find taking action flows. Where we choose to focus, we end up. Too often my clients come to me feeling stuck and lost with no direction in life. There are many reasons for this, a few I touched on in the last newsletter, that is; limiting beliefs, not knowing your values and the language you use. Lack of goals is another one. When presented with the question about ‘what are your goals?’, automatically it becomes clear the reason for lacking drive or motivation and staying stuck. Another part of the filter in our brain are our goals, highlighting the importance of having and knowing them.

What are goals? 

They are anything you want to create or experience in your life. You may want beautiful connections or a relationship, to start a business, to have children, to get physically in shape, to buy a house or to travel. When we know what we want it enables us to take action to embody and live the goal. Remember it is important to state what you want and not what you don’t want.

How do I go about setting goals?

I find it is best to break up my goals into different aspects of my life. These are personal-development, health, family, financial, spirituality, relationship and career. Then I break it down into 12 months, 6 months and then 3 months for each of these categories. I make sure I revisit these so I can see what’s been put to action and what hasn’t and if it is still valid and needs attention.

SMART goal setting 

You can follow the SMART goal setting guide.

S – Specific. Be specific about what you want.
M – Measurable. Being able to measure you progress helps with motivation and feedback if things need adjusting. Whether this is figures for financial, kilograms for weight loss or weight gain, number of clients, and scaling your feelings.
A – Attainable. Ask yourself who do I need to be to attain my goal? What do I need to start doing? Stop doing?
R – Realistic. Set goals that are challenging yet achievable.
T – Timely. Having a time frame gets you motivated and gives you a focus point to get things done.

Are you an active creator of your life and setting goals? Or do you need guidance to setting your goals or discovering what is stopping you? Get in touch for a free-discovery call.