Let’s look at how we get from amazing dreams to clearly defined goals.
You’ve had a few days now to capture your dreams in several areas of your life. You may have some exciting dreams and be thinking “Well yes that’s all very well but what now?”.
Here I will show you how to create clear goals from those dreams and then how to start turning these into reality, by taking action. Remember a Goal is an aim or an end in mind, but we need to make it a SMART goal:
Specific/Simple
Measurable and meaningful to you
As if now
Realistic and responsible/ecological
Timed and toward
First of all look at your list of dreams and decide which one is the highest priority for you now. (You can go back later and apply this process to the others, but let’s work on the most important one first)
So now I want you to think about your big picture “dream” and apply the following questions to it:
1) What is it specifically that I want to achieve?
Keep this simple and straightforward. Imagine you were describing this to a 6 or 7 year old. eg if your dream was “I want to live in a house by the sea” then to make it specific you would need to think about “which sea” What type of house, how many bedrooms, what would it look like?””would you own it or rent it?” Who would live there with you?”
2) How will you know you have achieved this goal? And is this actually your goal or someone else’s?
3) Write your goal in the present tense “as if you have it now”. eg: I own a five bedroom house by the Sea at Hove in Sussex etc
4) Check that you believe that this goal is achievable. Is it possible to achieve this goal? And how will achieving this goal impact on other areas of your life? (this is checking the ecology of your goal. If for example you believed that achieving your goal would lead to a relationship breakdown, then you might chose to do something differently! or this belief could sabotage your goal.)
5) You need to choose a time and date for when you have achieved your goal and write this down. This is like your deadline- it will also focus your actions. It’s important to write your goal in a positive way (towards your goal) eg I want to feel lighter, healthier and full of energy etc rather than “I don’t want to feel overweight anymore” Your mind doesn’t process the “don’t” so it hears I do want to feel overweight!” and guess what that is what you will achieve, more overweight!
Right, so work through your list of dreams and get going on making them into clear, focused goals – in the next blog we’ll talk about motivation and taking action.