If you were busy during the start of the 2010 New Year and didn’t get to writing down your goals then don’t worry because the New Moon phase is here now in Australia and offers another intense time for setting goals.

Consider writing one, if not three goals in each of the 7 areas of life:

1. Financial
2. Mental
3. Career
4. Family
5. Social
6. Physical (including health & wellbeing)
7. Spiritual

Rules for goal setting

Setting goals is much more than making vague, wishy-washy statements like ‘I will expand my business’. If you are serious about goal setting it means creating a written plan that includes reasonable and measurable long-term and short-term goals. It means making them SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timely) goals.

Specific

Your goal needs to be specific. It needs to be succinct, clearly written and include as much detail as you can put in a nutshell.

Measurable

To be effective goals need to be measurable so you can see progress and know when you have achieved them.  Using words like ‘better’, ‘shorter’ are not measurable so you need to think of incorporating measurements such as time, weights and measures into your goals. For example setting a goal to lose weight is not measurable but writing it in terms of I reduce my weight by 10 kilos is measurable.

Achievable

Ensure you goal is achievable and don’t set yourself up to fail and don’t make it too easy that it’s not motivating. Incorporate a level of challenge into your goals and if you are energised by the goal and can honestly visualise yourself reaching your goal then it’s bound to be achievable.

Realistic

Do you have the knowledge, skills and resources to reach your goal? If not, perhaps your first step is to gather the necessary information you need to make this goal realistic

Timely

Setting a deadline for achieving you goal provides the necessary tension to give you the motivation and energy.  The time frame you decide on for achieving you goal should be realistic.  Reducing your weight by 10 kilos in 10 weeks is realistic but in 3 weeks is not only unrealistic but also unhealthy.

Bringing energy to your goal setting

This is the exciting part.  Bring energy and emotion into your goals.  Visualise them, see, hear and feel every detail as if you have already achieved the goal. See yourself in the picture and notice the colours, the shapes, the distance between things, hear the sounds, know what the noises represent and experience the positive sensations of achieving your goal and living with that achievement.  Really experience what it feels like and connect with that feeling often.