Introduction - Every person in the world devotes countless hours to thinking of their future and their present situation in life. Almost everyone wishes that there was something that they could change in their life.

Whether it is their family life; their friendships; relationships or finances, everyone wants to change something. The first step to doing that is to set goals.

However, many of us are great at trying to set goals; most of us are practically incapable of following through with them.

01. Right Goals - Sometimes setting goals alone is not the only problem that you must face. Sometimes, choosing the right goals to begin with is harder.

Basically, you can choose to work any goal that you feel is necessary for your health, stability and happiness.

Goal setting is nothing more than a formal process for personal planning. By setting goals on a routine basis you decide what you want to achieve, and then move in a step-by-step manner towards the achievement of these goals.

02. Goal Setting Plan - This section explains how to set personal goals. It starts with your lifetime goals, and then works through a series of lower level plans culminating in a daily to-do list.

By setting up this structure of plans you can break even the biggest life goal down into a number of small tasks that you need to do each day to reach the lifetime goals.

The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime, as setting lifetime goals that gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making process.

03. Key Points - Goal setting is an important method of accomplishing any lifetime achievement. However, there are some key points that you should consider before setting your goals. Let’s take a look at what those are.

• Deciding what is important for you to achieve in your life and making your choices based on this knowledge
  
  
• Separating what is important from what is irrelevant so that your focus is in the right place
  
  
• Motivating yourself to achievement to ensure their accomplishment
  

04. Wrong - Goal setting can go wrong for a number of reasons. When these things happen, it can be a great bit devastating to the self esteem and can make the idea of setting any new goals mute.

Before we can look into what we can do about solving these goals setting problems, let’s see what the problems can be. This section is really no more than a more detailed explanation of the above section, but I felt that it needed a section of its own to help you set your sights solely on how setting your goals can go wrong.

05. Career Goals - One of the toughest issues in making a good career choice and career goal setting is identifying what it is that you want. Even when it seems that you know what you want, you may still have doubts on if your career choice is the right one for you.

Reaching clarity in those issues may be the most important thing you can do in your career planning and goal setting. Here are a few career goal setting guidelines that can help.

06. Action Plan - State your goal in very specific terms that you can accept

• Plan backwards from your goal for the best results

• Confront your fears and expectations immediately and progressively

• Put your plan on paper and into action as soon as possible

Planning a career move is much like mapping your route for a road trip.

If you don't know where you are going, you can't decide how to get there, but if you do know where you are going, you’ll get there faster.

07. Health/Fitness - Before beginning any fitness program, you need to decide what it is you want out of it. Do you want to improve your appearance, your physical skills; build endurance, flexibility or strength; are you trying to lose weight?

Make sure the activities that you pick meet the goals for what you want to get out of it.

It's important not to undermine yourself with goals that are too long-term or impossible to attain.

08. Relationship Goals - In order for a relationship to be satisfying those involved in it must set clear goals for it. Most people go into relationships with a vague idea of what they want out of it. When pressed, they often are unable to specify their goals for the relationship in the long term.

Goals can be stated or written, but they should be agreed upon by the partners at the beginning of the relationship.

09. Financial Goals - The first step in personal financial planning is learning to control your day-to-day financial affairs to enable you to do the things that bring you satisfaction and enjoyment. This is achieved by planning and following a budget.

The second step in personal financial planning, and the topic of this section, is choosing and following a course toward achieving your long-term financial goals.

10. Family Goals - Every family could use a little bit of help in setting family goals. Perhaps your family wants to take a really fantastic vacation together this year; That three day romantic getaway just for the parents that never seems to happen; the home improvement project no one ever seems to have time for.

Most families live in a certain budget. Living within budget can help your family pay off those credit cards once and for all and realize your child’s dreams of going to college or your dream of getting a bigger and better house.

11. Artistic Goals - Are you the kind of person that always admired the artistic people of the world like singers, actors, writers, poets, and painters? Have you always wondered what masterpieces you could create if you only had the time?

Chances are, if you are looking to set artistic goals, you already have the passion, interest, and talents. If not, perhaps part of your goal is to go to school for it.

12. Get Motivated - How could I write a guide to setting and achieving goals if I didn’t actually give you a few tips on the most important part of setting goals?

The key to successful goal setting is your ability to motivate yourself and stay motivated until you have achieved your goals.

Getting and staying motivated is not as difficult as it may seem. It just takes discipline. Let’s look at the thing that you should do in order to get and stay motivated.

13. Do’s + Don’ts - For the purposes of this guide I thought that a good do’s and don’ts category could help you get to the nitty-gritty in a nice and quick manner. Think about it; if you are reading this, you want to start setting goals and achieving them now not later. This can be a quick guide for re-reading later.

14. Time Management - Effective goal setting begins and ends with time management. You must be able to balance your time in the best way possible in order to achieve your goals. Most of us fail to achieve goals because we “lack the time”. That is why this section needed to be included in this guide.

The concept of time management has been in existence for more than 100 year believe it or not. Unfortunately the term "Time management" creates a false impression of what a person is able to do.

15. Manage Stress - Stress management wouldn’t seem like something that would be a part of setting goals but it could be the difference between you achieving them and not achieving them.

There is positive stress and negative stress. Positive stress adds anticipation and excitement to life, and we all thrive under a certain amount of stress. Deadlines, competitions, confrontations, and even our frustrations and sorrows add depth and enrichment to our lives.

16. Summary - Now that you have read this entire manual you have learned the skills that you will need in order to design and achieve any and all of the goals that you set out for yourself. In this manual, you have learned:

• How to create a successful goal setting strategy
  
  
• How to set goals effectively
  
  
• How to deal with stress that can hinder your efforts
  
  
• How to motivate yourself

THE END