Establishing Goals: the 7 Best Qualities of Your Goals

Definitions
Goals — the general statements that describe the desired solution to a problem or issue.


Ask some truly successful people what accounts for their achievements and you’ll often hear this answer: goals. Indeed, clear goals are the fulcrum on which all prioritizing turns. To set goals is worth a good block of your time. Without goals your time will be aimless.

However, what kinds of goals? What must goals be?

1. Specific - A specific goal has a much greater chance of being accomplished than a general goal. To set a specific goal you must answer the six “W” questions:

*Who: Who is involved?

*What: What do I want to accomplish?

*Where: Identify a location.

*When: Establish a time frame.

*Which: Identify requirements and constraints.

*Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.

2. Attainable. Successful people set goals that are ambitious yet realistic. Cycles of success mark achievers’ lives.
When such people fail, it isn’t from a lack of planning or effort. Dreamers, on the other hand, set unreachable goals. They ride a rollercoaster of ups and downs, sometimes never making it to the top of the first hill.

3. Measurable. Imagine a football game with no yard lines, end zones, goal posts, scoreboard, clock, or even clear-cut teams—just a bunch of players whose goal is to pass a
football, run around, and collide. It might be fun to watch for a while, but not for long. The chaos would soon drive the fans out of the stadium. Shortly thereafter, the players,unmotivated and confused, would wander off the field.
To work without clear-cut, measurable goals is, in reality, not much more productive or engaging than our imaginary football game. To motivate yourself and others— to know if you have won—you absolutely need goals that can be measured.

4. Written. “I read it, so it must be true!” Something written has a peculiar power to convince. Writing down your objectives and having others read them (if you supervise
them, they may need to read your goals) brings authority, accountability, and permanence to your priorities. The Sheraton Anchorage has printed goal statements all over its service corridors; it’s one of the best-run hotels in the country.

5. Realistic - To be realistic, a goal must represent an objective toward which you are both willing and able to work. A goal can be both high and realistic; you are the only one who can decide just how high your goal should be. But be sure that every goal represents substantial progress. A high goal is frequently easier to reach than a low one because a low goal exerts low motivational force. Some of the hardest jobs you ever accomplished actually seem easy simply because they were a labor of love.
Your goal is probably realistic if you truly believe that it can be accomplished. Additional ways to know if your goal is realistic is to determine if you have accomplished anything similar in the past or ask yourself what conditions would have to exist to accomplish this goal.

6. Accountable. Without accountability, goals melt away, forgotten. Remain flexible; feedback may prompt you to revise targets you set for yourself or for others. But hold
to your goals.

7. Deadlined. If you set a deadline for your tasks, you’ll have a much better chance of achieving your goal. Better yet, tell someone else that you set that deadline. It will make
you more accountable.

Goals, of course, can be long- or short-term. But for some reason, we often fail to set aside blocks of time for serious longterm goal setting. Each year—perhaps as a New Year’s resolu tion—you should make a list of at least three personal and three professional long-term goals, indicating how each will be measured and a deadline for achievement. Prioritize these goals, deciding which is your A goal, your B goal, and your C goal.
Then put this list in a prominent place—someplace where its presence will motivate you to continued action.

15 Tips to Stay Positive in Negative Situations

There are times when we must go through negative situations. Maybe people say something negative about us, or they show rejection or even resentment against us. In such situations, it may be difficult to stay positive. We may be inclined to react negatively to them. That won’t do us any good though; doing so will just make the situation worse. People may behave even more negatively to us. Our day would be filled with anger and disappointment. At the end, nobody wins.

Though it’s not easy, it’s important to stay positive in negative situations. Beat the negative situations by staying positive. Here are 15 tips on how to do it; pick the ones that work for you:

1. Never respond when you are not calm. If you are not sure that you are calm, don’t respond. Take time to calm yourself down first.
2. Take a deep breath as a first step to calm yourself down.
3. Speak in gentle tone to reduce the tension of the situation.
4. Realize that you can find opportunities in negative situations. Albert Einstein said: “In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.”
5. Look at the content of what people say to you for something positive that you can act upon to improve yourself. Don’t just reject the whole messages.
6. For the rest of the messages which is negative, simply ignore it.
7. Maintain positive view of the people. Maybe you don’t like their messages or behavior, but that doesn’t mean that you can hate them personally.
8. Realize that having negative feelings will just hurt you, not them. So there is no reason for you to have any negative feeling.
9. If you make mistakes, be open to admit it.
10. If you make mistakes, remember this quote by George Bernard Shaw: “A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.”
11. If you can, listen to motivational audio program to feed positive thoughts into your mind.
12. Talk to a positive friend who can encourage you.
13. Remember your favorite quotes to give you inspiration and motivation. This is one reason why you should have quote of the day.
14. Look at the negative situations as your training sessions for real life. The higher you climb in life, the worse the negative situations would be, so you’d better be prepared for them.
15. Realize that you can’t please everyone. In fact, nobody can. Sometimes you need to just let some people go. Realizing this will relieve you from a lot of unnecessary burden so that you can focus on the people that you can positively interact with.