Personal Goal Setting and Planning For Success

Success eludes most of us because we don’t know what we want. We stumble through life like someone lost in a bustling city searching for a particular house without an address. To achieve success you need to know when you have achieved it, or you might stand right outside its door and pass it by without ever knowing you were in the right neighbourhood.

Thankfully, setting your own personal goals for success is nowhere as difficult as finding a random house in the city. Rather it is more like having a vast city of opportunities and possibilities spread out before you. It’s only up to you to pick the house that suits you. Setting goals gives you a destination and a direction to travel. Sure you could wander aimlessly and not pay attention to anything around you. The only trouble with that strategy is that you never see anything and you never get anywhere.

This is why you need to set your own personal goals for what you consider success. Only you can define this success and no one else. Various people have different ways they like to tackle the process of goal setting, and it is useful to understand how different people do it so that you might find the method that suits your particular temperament.

If you’re a very straight-forward, no nonsense kind of person who likes to keep things simple, that’s exactly what you should do with your personal goal setting process: keep it simple and direct. That might be right for you, but some have very well thought out strategies that take into consideration both long term and short term goals, and the actions that need to be taken over the long haul and on a daily basis to get closer to your goal and achieve your personal destination. The thing is that each of us respond to different stimuli and different mediums of influence. There are many who are very visually oriented and respond best to things they can see for themselves. This is the reason people use techniques such as vision boards to strengthen their goals and their process of personal planning. On the other hand if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t go anywhere without your pocket diary or organizer, and if you revel in its tables and forms to keep you sane, you might need a more structured toolkit to set your goals for success.

Whatever the method to your madness, a method you must have and stick to, because without it, it is too easy to get lost in the bustle of life. To get places and see the things you want to see on your journey, you need to know what you are looking for. Then things become a little easier. Even if you lose your path, at least the destination is clear and a new path can be found again. On this kind of journey, each new step on each new path carries you closer to what you seek, and the road educates you and makes you wiser as you make progress. But only if you know what you are looking for and you keep your senses sharp and tuned along the way.

Short discussion on setting personal goals for success. Included links to useful articles and resources. Originally guest-blogged at the erstwhile DevelopAndGrow.com blog on July 4th 2007.


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