Goal setting for newbies
November 26th, 2006 by Remon
Setting goals is easy, anyone can do it! However, reaching goals fails very often. Why? Because you’re lacking motivation usually (personal growth) or because the goal is not realistic (business).
Now, not being motivated to reach a personal goal, ie. stop smoking, is nothing to be ashamed off. It happens to many people. It’s not that you can’t reach your goal, it’s that you don’t know how to set your goal.
Let’s take 2 samples, one personal goal (stop smoking) and one business goal (make money on the internet). We’ll start with the personal goal, tell you why many people can’t do it, and tell you how you can do it.
Stop smoking
When setting a personal goal, you have to stand behind it, believe in it. If your wife tells you to quit smoking, you won’t be motivated. If you say to yourself, man I really need to quit smoking then you’re on the right path.
A few days go by, and you really miss the cigarettes. You will never ever smoke again, how will you handle a life without cigarrettes? Must be a hard feeling. This is an example of how not to think. This thinking gets you demotivated and you’ll be smoking again before you know it.
The key to reaching personal goals is not setting the bar too high. When you want to quit smoking, just stop for only 7 or 14 days. After these days you can smoke all you want. 7 Days doesn’t sound too hard does it? Just try it for 7 or 14 days. After this period your body won’t be screaming for nicotine and you can easily extend the period with another (few) week(s). A few weeks later you can easily say you stopped smoking, you really don’t care that you won’t smoke a cigarrette for the rest of your life, you don’t even want to smoke anymore.
Making money on the internet
When setting a business goal, many people lack the motivation to reach it, or their goal is simply unrealistic. When you want to make money on the internet don’t set a goal of $500 a day within a year if you have no previous experience. It will get you demotivated and you won’t reach your goal.
Start small, set a goal of $1 a day or 50 visitors a day for example. You can reach this and you will be motivated to reach it because it is within reach. When you’ve reached $1 a day or 50 visitors a day, move the bar higher. Go for $5 a day or 250 visitors a day for example. After $5 you can aim for $10 a day, go on to $25 a day, then $50 a day, $100 a day, $250 a day etc.
Don’t set a too small time limit as well. It’s better to reach your goal early then it is to not reach your goal at all. Not reaching your goal will get you demotivated. Let’s say you start a website on Januari 1st, set a goal of $1 a day by December 31. If you reach it before December 31, no problem, simply set a new goal and continue.
Conclusion
As you see, goal setting should be done in small steps (7-14 days, $1 a day). It’s easier to reach a goal within reach then it is to reach an unrealistic goal. By setting small goals you will get motivated and stay motivated, every time you’ve reached your goal you gain more self confidence. You can do it!
I hope the message in this post came through, I found it hard to describe what I meant but I think it went well. If not, leave a comment and I try clear things up for you.