• First you create your "big picture" of what you want to do with your life (or over, say, the next 5 or 10 years), and identify the large-scale goals that you want to achieve.
• Then, you break these down into the smaller and smaller targets that you must hit to reach your lifetime goals.
• Finally, once you have your plan, you start working on it to achieve these goals.

You can start the process of goal setting by looking at your lifetime goals.  Then, we work down to the things that you can do in the next five years, then next year, next month, next week, and today, to start moving towards reaching your goals.

Setting Lifetime Goals

The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime (or at least, by a significant point in the future).  Setting lifetime goals gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making. 

To give a broad, balanced coverage of all important areas in your life, try to set goals in some of the following categories (or in other categories of your own that are important to you).

• Career:  What level do you want to reach in your career, or what do you wan to achieve?
• Financial:  How much do you wan to earn, by what stage?  How is this related to your career goals?
• Education:  Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular?  What information and skills will you need to have in order to achieve other goals?
• Family:  Do you want to be a parent?  If so, how are you going to be a good parent?  How do you want to be seen by a partner or by members of your extended family?
• Physical:  Are there any athletic goals that you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age?  What steps are you going to take to achieve this?
• Pleasure:  How do you want to enjoy yourself? 
  
• Attitude:  Is any part of your mindset holding you back?  Is there any part of the way you behave that upsets you?

Spend some time brainstorming these things, and then select one or more goals in each category that best reflect what you want to do.  Then consider trimming again so that you have a small number or really significant goals that you can focus on.

As you do this, make sure that the goals that you have set are ones that you genuinely want to achieve, not ones that your parents, family, or employers might want.

Setting Smaller Goals

Once you have set your lifetime goals, set a ten-year or five-year plan of smaller goals that you need to complete in order to reach your lifetime plan goals.

Then create a one-year plan, six-month plan, and a one-month pan of progressively smaller goals that you should reach to achieve your lifetime goals.  Each of these should be based on the previous plan. 

Then create a daily to-do list of things that you should do today to work towards your lifetime goals.

At an early stage, your smaller goals might be to read books and gather information on the achievement of your higher level goals.  This will help you to improve the quality and realism of your goal setting.

Staying on course

Once you've decided on your first set of goals, keep the process going by reviewing and updating your to-do list on a daily basis.

Periodically review the longer term plans, and modify them to reflect your changing priorities and experience. 

SMART Goals

When setting your short term goals it may be very helpful to use the SMART mnemonic. 

• S - Specific
• M - Measurable
• A - Attainable
• R - Relevant
• T - Time-bound

Setting SMART goals will help you to reach attainable short term goals; building confidence along the way in order to ultimately achieve your long term career goals.

Goal Setting Tips

The following broad guidelines will help you to set effective, achievable goals:

• State each goal as a positive statement - Express your goals positively
  
• Be precise - Set precise goals, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure achievement.  If you do this, you'll know exactly when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it.
• Set priorities - When you have several goals, give each a priority.  This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by having too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones.
  
• Write goals down - This crystallizes them and gives them more force.
• Keep operational goals small - Keep the low-level goals that you're working towards small and achievable.  If a goal is too large, then it can seem that you are not making progress towards it.  Keeping goals small and incremental gives more opportunities for reward.
• Set performance goals, not outcome goals - You should take care to set goals over which you have as much control as possible.  It can be quite dispiriting to fail to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond your control.  If you base your goals on personal performance, then you can keep control over the achievement of your goals, and draw satisfaction from them.
• Follow your heart and passion when setting and achieving your goals - Do what you want to do rather than what you feel you "should" or "need" to do.
• List the benefits for achieving the goal - This will provide you with additional motivation.  
  
• Set realistic goals - It's important to set goals that you can achieve.  All sorts of people ( for example, employers, parents, society) can set unrealistic goals for you.  They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions.  It's also possible to set goals that are too difficult because you might not appreciate either the obstacles in the way, or understand quite how much skill you need to develop to achieve a particular level of performance.
• Visualize yourself achieving your goals immediately after you set them - This will build your confidence and remove doubt you may have in your mind.
• Take steps each day towards your goals, no matter how small you think the steps may be - This will show progress towards reaching desired goals, reinforce motivation and increase confidence. 
  
• Don't limit yourself in any way when striving for your goals - Be prepared to do thing that are uncomfortable or unfamiliar to you along the journey.
• Get out there and network with people - Things don't happen when you sit still, keep moving.
• Understand that it is you that will achieve your goals, no one else - If you are waiting for someone's help, stop waiting.
• Take a good look at everything you have already achieved in reaching your goals and be grateful and thankful.
  

Achieving Goals and Rewarding Yourself

When you've achieved a goal, take the time to enjoy the satisfaction of having done so.  Absorb the implications of the goal achievement, and observe the progress that you've made towards other goals. 

If the goal was a significant one, reward yourself appropriately.  All of this helps you build the self-confidence you deserve.