So in the first part, you were taught that setting goals are very important. Then, the trick to creating goals is to want it so bad that you want to create goals and stick to them. Then in Part two, you were taught how to write your goals down, organize them by splitting them up and then tuning your psychology for success by believing in it. Now, in this third and last installment, I will conclude by showing you how to review your goals on a regular basis, schedule it and finally, an effective method for achieving (doing) them.

Step 6: Review It

Once your goals are split up, you want to review them often. I usually read my goals three times per day and it only takes about sixty-seconds of your time for doing it. The reason why you want to read your goals so often is because it keeps it fresh on your mind and also because you don’t want to drift towards another direction. I don’t know about you but throughout the day, I have Facebook, Twitter, my web site to tweak / update, then I have a blog post to write and some marketing — oh man, the list goes on. I get distracted but as soon as I read my goals, I am back on track. The process is best handled by creating the habit of reviewing it regularly.

Step 7: Schedule It

Since you have your goals broken down into chunks, now it is time to schedule them. In my demonstration from the second blog post in the series, the goals were developed using the SMART criteria discussed by Paul J. Meyer in his book “Attitude is everything” which I have read and love. I won’t go too much into what SMART goals are because you can click on the Wikipedia link I have listed here but for now, just know that your goals need to be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time bound.

How to schedule your goals:

  1. First, create goals for the entire year. Don’t create too many goals either because then you will be inundated. As an example – it is May and there are 7 months left till the end of the year. You can create a web site, start and finish writing a (150 pages or less) book and market it all in one year and thats something anyone ambitious enough can do in seven-months. However, if you have a day-job, a family and everything else, that might be pushing it so your best bet  is to just give yourself the 7-months to write the book only.
  2. Next, split your goals up into monthly goals, for the next 7 months.
  3. You monthly goals will then get split up into weeks tasks.
  4. Finally, your weekly tasks get split up into daily tasks.

Your daily tasks get you closer to your weekly goals. Your weekly goals get you closer to your monthly goals. Your monthly goals get you closer to your yearly goals. Now, if your goals are not as complicated such as writing a book or creating a web site, then lets hypothetically say that you want to sell all of your furniture and move to another state in 30 days. In that case, you would break your goals down into small weekly chunks and every day, you would give yourself tasks that would move you closer and closer to your weekly goals which would eventually finish by the end of the month. Easy to follow right? (if not, comment below and tell me where you need clarification.)

Step 8: Do it

I don’t know anyone who can achieve their goals without some kind of goal setting manual or software program. Here are my personal favorites and things I have used in the past which have worked great for me and what I currently use today.

My personal favorites which I use on a regular basis are the Franklin Covey planner and the GoalsOnTrack. Other than that, I have notebooks for note taking but they are mostly to collect my thoughts when I am thinking.

In Conclusion

I know I could have made this blog series into one giant post but I thought I go above and beyond writing a how-to goal setting blog post and show you how I do it. I wrote to you about the mental preparation, how to organize your thoughts and write them down so that you can become clear on your goals. Then I went onto showing you how to schedule it and do it. Setting up goals are really not that difficult and its a habit that you should form. Anything that you do from now on should become a goal. When you do that, you will notice how efficient you become and how much more you get done. Thats a promise!

Thanks for reading the last part in the goal setting series. Please write to me below if you have any questions or if you’re confused about anything you want me to clarify.