Setting goals is one of the most effective approaches to evaluate your journey to success. This applies to anyone, including students working professionals, or someone trying to start their life from a fresh perspective. While creating milestones, we often set too high or impractical targets that are difficult to achieve. This leads to failures with the result of feeling discouraged to pursue the plan.
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5 Questions to Ask Before Setting Your Goal
The best way to avoid this setback is to ask yourself a few questions to clear up your thoughts. Setting goals follows the same structure for everyone irrespective of their past.
Before you start your journey, please spare some time to reflect on your past and try to take lessons from it. This would allow you to choose the right ingredients to succeed while dissuading you from making the same errors.
Prepare A Framework To Set Your Goals Efficiently By Asking Questions To Yourself
Stop setting goals just for the sake of it. If you keep forming new milestones and never work towards achieving them, it will frustrate you, and you will lose confidence in yourself. Instead, as you plan, start digging deeper to understand the objectives, intentions, and hopes behind each goal you are setting.
Here Are 5 Questions You Should ask Yourself Before Setting Your Goal
1. What is my motivation for creating these goals?
The first question that you should ask yourself is, why are you focussing on this specific goal right now? You aim to find out why this goal is relevant to you now and how it impacts your life and future.
Finding answers to these questions is crucial to understanding the motivation behind your goals. Motivation comes from within ourselves. You can take steps like trying out life hacks or talking to a personal development coach. But you will be unable to remain focussed and fight your way through difficulties.
As long as you are not clear on the reason for pursuing a particular goal, you will not be able to achieve it successfully. Once you have a clear understanding of your requirements, make sure that these expectations are realistic.
2. What have I tried so far in my quest for this goal?
One of the biggest reasons people fail to keep up with their goals is because they quit after a few false starts. It’s okay to reflect on the steps you took and which of them didn’t work for you. Many times, however, people are scared to leave their comfort zone. This prevents them from taking a single step to commence the journey.
Therefore, you need to ask yourself what you have done so far to reach your goal. If the answer is nothing, don’t punish yourself, instead, start experimenting with your options. If you’ve already tried them and nothing worked, don’t lose your spirit. Now you know what did not work for you and what you should avoid doing.
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3. Are my goals SMART?
SMART is a well-known acronym typically used across the corporate world. It may not be very exciting, but it comes in handy when you are starting to prepare yourself to reach your goal.
So, what is SMART?
Specific: What is the exact nature of your goal?
Measurable: How will you track the growth?
Attainable: Is your goal realistic?
Relevant: How is the goal applicable to your life and future?
Timed: What is the deadline for achieving the goal?
4. How am I approaching my goals?
There are two major ways of approaching a goal. One is because you want to avoid pain and the other is because you are looking for growth. You need to question yourself to find out exactly which approach you want to take because each of them presents different results.
For instance, you see, you have gained a little weight. If your approach is to avoid pain, you will simply work out to shed the extra pounds and stop once you’ve attained the goal. On the other hand, if your goal is motivated by growth, then the reason for exercising changes.
Your focus shifts from simply losing weight to improving physical fitness. At that point, your ultimate goal becomes participating in physically challenging activities like hiking or rock climbing.
5. What had gotten in my way to achieving my goals?
Imagine yourself a couple of years from now, and you see that you haven’t accomplished your milestone. What do you think came your way? The answer may seem very harsh, but it’s almost always the same reason: excuses.
You may face serious obstacles on your way. Take note of these difficulties and learn from how you tackled them and how you can do better. If you look back, you’ll be amazed to find the number of excuses you came up with in most cases. But you have to be honest with yourself!
To stop falling into the trap of excuses, ask yourself what your biggest excuses are. Start preparing yourself with the knowledge to deal with the resistance you would face when you start working on your new goals.
There is no reason for you to explain your actions or sound impressive. This little task is just for your benefit, and no one will read the answers unless you show it to them. Most importantly, fight the urge to focus only on your failures, and instead concentrate on the positive experiences from your past. The more you focus on positivity, personal development and improvements, the smoother your path will be on your journey ahead.
I hope you find this article helpful.
