SETTING GOALS Many of us feel that we are adrift in this world and that despite hard work, they

are getting nowhere. The most important reason for it is that they are not clear on what they want from life. Of course they have not spent much time doing it either. Of course all of us want to be big guys with good jobs and money. But that is different from formal goals. So we are like nomads, wandering but we are actually worse than nomads because nomads at least know that they want to wander. Goal setting is a powerful process to overcome our unintentional nomadic style. By knowing what want to achieve, we concentrate our efforts. None of what we discussed is possible without goal setting i.e. the importanturgent framework cannot be operated without it. In the important-urgent framework, we saw that the term important is a comparative term and in relation to achieving something. In fact, importance means important to achieve the goal and urgent means urgent to achieving the goal. We also saw how managing time helps us to manage our stress. Therefore goal setting is crucial for both. Top-level athletes, successful business-people and achievers in all fields set goals. Setting goals gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses your acquisition of knowledge, and helps you to organize your time and your resources so that you can make the very most of your life. By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals, and you'll see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind. You will also raise your self confidence as you start achieving and know that such achievements are taking you to something big as you recognize your own ability and competence in achieving the goals that you've set. Equally, achieving goals makes us feel in control and therefore reduces the stress. Steps in Goal Setting There are three steps in Goal Setting, which though given as three distinct steps are complimentary and are not mutually exclusive: Step 1: Setting Life Time Goals. Step 2: Setting Short Term Goals. Step 3: Periodic Review

Step 1: Setting Life Time Goals. Every person has a 1) personal life, 2) social life, 3) career and 4) interests. Man is holistic if he gets what he wants in these areas. Of course, these tend to compete with each other for his resources particularly time. Therefore goal setting is not about setting goals in just one area; but doing it in all areas that are important to him/her. While the areas could be wide and unlimited, we can classify these into four broad categories for most people as mentioned above. Life time goals are in fact long term goals and are not as if you never revise it. To be pragmatic, you can say that the life time goals could have a 10 to 15 year span and then roll them on.

Career Goals. In todays world, education, financial goals and career goals tend to closely complement each other for most people. So, one must set goals in all these. I would call it the anchor goal since several goals are linked to it and are created to support reaching this goal and this goal in turn enables one to reach the other goals. Career goal is important since we spend most of our time in the workplace today even though it may be for earning money, position etc. The person has to therefore select an area and the level to which he would want to achieve. It could be to be CEO of a company in Telecom sector, to be at least a General Manager in a bank by the time one retries and so on. It is important to specific the sector and level in broad terms since the skills required for these may be different. Financial Goals. Money is required for one to have a sense of security and to enjoy a normal life. Money is achieved through a career in most cases. Of course it could be entrepreneurship which also can be considered as a career for this purpose. It is entirely upto a person to say that he wants to be the richest man in the world and to say that He should have at least Rs. 10 crore in deposit by the time he becomes 50 years. He would have to behave differently to achieve these different goals. Education Goals. Education is very important to achieve career goal and the financial goals. Hence, it is very necessary to define it in relation to the career.

Personal Goals. Personal goals are goals one wants to achieve in life and differs from the goals of caring for ones parents to marriage, children, personal happiness, health, religious status, and attitude such as I would like to be known as a humorous person or a positive person, an open person etc. Though this can also widely vary, goals related to family, health and attitude would have a strong bearing on the career goal. Social Goals. We belong to a social system and therefore one would need to define some goals in these areas also such as wanting to be respected person in the society in a particular area, respected person in the church or local Temple, mosque etc.. It can also be related to a social class e.g., among the think tanks, Rotarians, social workers, public service etc. Interest Goals. Every person has some interest. It could be in singing, dancing, painting, reading, travelling etc. These are important areas which increase our vistas and give meaning to our life in a more enriching manner. This is often moderated by culture and gender. Thus you might find a person from Bengal more inclined towards classical music, a girl from Tamilnadu toward classical dance etc. Here too we should be able to define the specific area and level that we would want to achieve.

Spend some time brainstorming these things, and then select one or more goals in each category that best reflect what you want to do. Then consider trimming again so that you have a small number of 2

really significant goals that you can focus on. As you do this, make sure that the goals that you have set are ones that you genuinely want to achieve, not ones that your parents, family, or employers might want. (If you have a partner, you probably want to consider what he or she wants - however, make sure that you also remain true to yourself!) Step 2: Setting Short Term Goals. Once the life time goal is set, one has to set shorter term goals since the life time goals are very far off. Some school of thought talks about 5 year plans but perhaps that is the legacy of our mindset. I would say that three years would a fair one for Indian context today. This is because I have observed people making some significant career progress in three years in the initial stages and therefore they could be excellent time span for a short term goal. Alternatively, this could be so initially i.e., when you are young (say below 35) and then look at five year spans. Another reason for this time span is the relative higher degree of instability that you will be willing to undertake and focus on career goals initially. Later, personal and social goals tend to have a greater impact than it had when one is young. The short term goals are:the goals that you want to achieve in three to five years so that the life goals can be achieved. They are in fact interim goals that lead to life time goals. They act as milestones. These goals can then be divided into shorter time span of one year, six months, monthly etc. ending up in a to do list. Thus for example, your long term goal may be to be CEO of a large multinational, for which you would need commensurate educational goal of an MBA from a top rated institute which would need a degree in engineering and high entry scores. To achieve this, you may plan to have annual goals of what you want to achieve in education, entrance examination etc. and monthly goals of what you should cover each month and the daily to do list. You may also have an interest goal of being a film critique who writes in a national film review in 15 years from now and being father of two excellent children who is known in the local social circle as a positive and helpful person. Now, your to do list will contain some elements of all these; but say you are one month from the entrance examination, and you have a one day workshop coming up in the college on film critiquing. Now you will have to rethink on your to do list. Is it important to attend the workshop? Is it urgent? You will perhaps feel that it is important but not urgent as you can attend one later, and therefore plan to allocate the time for the entrance examination study rather than the workshop. This is what goals do for time management. Step 3: Periodic Review. It is difficult to put a periodicity for it; but can be based on time, achievement of a target etc. Thus you may review every year or every time you achieve something or because of some life events which is unexpected. In reality most people use a combination of these. After review, you may rearrange the goals. The life time goals are rearranged less often; but it is done.

Characteristics of a Good Goal A useful way of making goals more powerful is to use the SMART mnemonic. While there are plenty of variants (some of which we've included in parenthesis), SMART usually stands for: S - Specific (or Significant). M - Measurable (or Meaningful). A - Attainable (or Action-Oriented and reasonably within reach). R - Relevant (or Rewarding). T - Time-bound (or Trackable).

For example, instead of having "To sail around the world" as a goal, it's more powerful to say "To have completed my trip around the world by December 31, 2015." Obviously, this will only be attainable if a lot of preparation has been completed beforehand!

Guidelines for Setting Goals State each goal as a positive statement - Express your goals positively "Execute this technique well" is a much better goal than "Don't make this stupid mistake." Be precise: Set precise goals, putting in dates, times and amounts so that you can measure achievement. If you do this, you'll know exactly when you have achieved the goal, and can take complete satisfaction from having achieved it. Set priorities - When you have several goals, give each a priority. This helps you to avoid feeling overwhelmed by having too many goals, and helps to direct your attention to the most important ones. Write goals down - This crystallizes them and gives them more force. Keep operational goals small - Keep the low-level goals that you're working towards small and achievable. If a goal is too large, then it can seem that you are not making progress towards it. Keeping goals small and incremental gives more opportunities for reward. Set performance goals, not outcome goals - You should take care to set goals over which you have as much control as possible. It can be quite dispiriting to fail to achieve a personal goal for reasons beyond your control! In business, these reasons could be bad business environments or unexpected effects of government policy. In sport, they could include poor judging, bad weather, injury, or just plain bad luck. If you base your goals on personal performance, then you can keep control over the achievement of your goals, and draw satisfaction from them. Set realistic goals - It's important to set goals that you can achieve. All sorts of people (for example, employers, parents, media, or society) can set unrealistic goals for you. They will often do this in ignorance of your own desires and ambitions. It's also possible to set goals that are too difficult because you might not appreciate either the obstacles in the way, or understand quite how much skill you need to develop to achieve a particular level of performance. An equal danger is setting too low goals.

Reviewing and Progressing When you've achieved a goal, take the time to enjoy the satisfaction of having done so. Absorb the implications of the goal achievement, and observe the progress that you've made towards other goals. If the goal was a significant one, reward yourself appropriately. All of this helps you build the self-confidence you deserve. With the experience of having achieved this goal, review the rest of your goal plans: If you achieved the goal too easily, make your next goal harder. They say that since goals drive you, the goals set should be such that you can achieve only about 70% of it. This is true of life goals. The short term goals should have at least 80% success chance, the yearly ones 90% and the monthly and weekly ones greater than 95%. If the goal took a dispiriting length of time to achieve, make the next goal a little easier. If you learned something that would lead you to change other goals, do so. If you noticed a deficit in your skills despite achieving the goal, decide whether to set goals to fix this.

Goal Setting Examples For her New Year's Resolution, Susan has decided to think about what she really wants to do with her life. Her lifetime goals are as follows: Career - "To be managing editor of the magazine that I work for." Artistic - "To achieve sufficient proficiency to have a exhibition in the our town hall. Physical - "To run a half marathon."

Now that Susan has listed her lifetime goals, she then breaks down each one into smaller, more manageable goals. Let's take a closer look at how she might break down her lifetime career goal - becoming managing editor of her magazine: Five-year goal: "Become a General Manager." One-year goal: "Volunteer for projects that current General Manager is heading. Six-month goal: "Attend the advanced Program in journal editing and a workshop on art". Run 10 kms at least once in a week and attend one half Marathon by 01 January 2012 etc. One-month goal: "Talk to the current General Manager to determine what are the competencies required to do his job. Go to the local sports club and find out about the half marathons. Complete the paining on horse which is in progress. One-week goal: "Book the meeting with the Managing Editor, call local sports secretary and book Saturday evening for paining.

As you can see from this example, breaking big goals down into smaller, more manageable goals makes it far easier to see how the goal will get accomplished.

Goal setting is an important method of:

Deciding what you want to achieve in your life. Separating what's important from what's irrelevant, or a distraction. Motivating yourself. Building your self-confidence, based on successful achievement of goals.

Goal Setting Exercise in respect of yourself (Fill the box below). This is a practice exercise based on which you can define the goals later. Life Time Goal My Career Goal is: To be _____________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________by 2025. My Financial Goal is to earn at least Rs. ___________________ per month by 2025. Should I retire by 2025, I should have Rs. ______________ as my savings. My Educational Goal is to complete my ___________________ qualification by 2025 or achieve mastery in the areas of _________________________ by 2025. I will be known as __________________________________ by 2025 in the local community. I will have a stable married life by _________________________ with children by 2025. My area of interest is _____________________ and I will achieve ________________________ proficiency in it by 2025. Goals for Next three years. My Career Goal is: To be _____________________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________by 2015. My Financial Goal is to earn at least Rs. ___________________ per month by 2015. Should I retire by 2015, I should have Rs. ______________ as my savings. My Educational Goal is to complete my ___________________ qualification by 2015 or achieve mastery in the areas of _________________________ by 2015. 6

I will be known as __________________________________ by 2015 in the local community. I will have a stable married life by _________________________ with children by 2015. My area of interest is _____________________ and I will achieve ________________________ proficiency in it by 2015. Year End Goal. By the end of this year I will _____________________________________________________________(describe what you will do in relation to career)

This Month Goal. By the end of July, I will _____________________________________________________ describe what you will do in relation to career) This Week Goal. By the end of July, I will _____________________________________________________ describe what you will do in relation to career) My Action for the Day is _________________________________________________________