Everywhere you look people are telling you to set goals. But maybe it hasn't worked for you and you're wondering why you should bother. How do you set goals that are important, worthwhile, and attainable? How can you set up your goals to provide you with the success you've been looking for? This article will help you review what goals will mean something to you if you achieve them, and show how you can break them down into manageable, measurable steps.



First take a look at the big picture. What do you want to do with your life? Imagine you are listening to your own eulogy, what does it contain? Does it read the way you would have liked it to read? Transfer the things you would like to hear in your eulogy into life goals. These are the things you truly find important in your life.

The next step would be to break down your life goals into smaller pieces, targets you can aim at and hit to reach your lifetime goals. You might have a lifetime goal to have several close friends and a large family, but what are the steps that will get you there? Once you've broken down the steps can they be reduced into even smaller steps? You might find steps which will take a few years, and those steps can be broken into portions that take a few months. The goals that will take a few months can be broken into smaller and smaller steps, and each smaller step can be a goal.

Once you have your goals broken down into the smallest steps possible, write them down. State each goal as a positive statement, since it is much easier to “do” something than to “don't do it”. Instead of saying, “I won't eat junk food,” say something in the affirmative like, “I eat healthy foods”. A goal like this can then be broken into measurable steps like eating one serving of fruit each day. Measurable steps allow you to know when you are accomplishing your goal. The question, “Did I eat one serving of fruit today?” can be answered more precisely than, “Did I not eat any junk food?” Well maybe you didn't eat anything too terrible, but it would be much harder to fudge on a goal as precise as eating one serving of fruit. Either you did or you didn't, easy as that.