“Set your goals!” I believe you’ve heard this phrase so many times in your life time that you are almost sick of it! From young, our parents, relatives, teachers or some other adult friends would like to ask about our ambition. Although they might not be using the exact words, they are indirectly telling you to set your goals.

But is setting goals really important? Why is it that most successful people and businesses perceive this process crucial for their success? If you aren’t like or are too afraid of setting your own goals for whatever reasons, I would advise you to take a serious look at this article.

Some people believe that as long as you are motivated or even ‘unstoppable’, you can do anything and everything. Yes and No! Yes, your job can be completed within the time stipulated. No, because you will end up nowhere or worse, a position that you hate. A goal is like a destination in a map, not only does it give you the direction clearly but also to show you your progress. As a matter of fact, your goal is one of the vital factors in determining if you succeed or fail.

Set your goal with your mind power. You see, your mind is powerful and it can really help you to set your goals more effectively and at the same time, more realistically.

• Clear Goal

Be precise in what you are aiming for. When you set goals that are ambiguous, you will tend to lost track along the way. When your goal is not definite, you will not know if you are heading the correct way, let alone your destination. Instead of writing your personal goal “I’ll get a new car within 5 years.”, you write “I’ll drive a new BMW 730i by January 2011.”

Setting goals which are clear and specific benefit you in 3 ways.

1. The goals give your conscious and subconscious mind of what you want to attain. A specific goal allows your mind to paint a clearer picture of what you will have and this allows you to visualize your dream regularly.
2. You will be committed when you know precisely where you are heading to.
3. This clear goal prevents you from loosing your focus and fall back to “firefighting” on your daily problems.

• Positive Goal

When setting goals, you need to be very positive about them. Focus on what you want to achieve and not what you intent to avoid. Take for instant a career goal; you should be writing down “I will be earning $100,000 per month by the age 30.” instead of “I don’t want to remain poor by the time I retire.”

When you compare the two goals, don’t you find that the formal goal gives you that energy in you and motivates you to go for it?  In fact, this first goal works wonder to your subconscious mind which naturally direct you towards your dream.

You have a dream, you set your goals and you work towards it. A very simple formula towards getting what you want. Don’t bother taking any action to achieve your dream if you have not set your goal. When you strive without a clear goal, chances are you will end up reaching a wrong target. Get your pen and notebook immediately and pen down your goal now.

If your dream is to be successful in life, you are not alone. Many people have dreams and want to achieve their dreams one day. They work at fulfilling their dreams and bought numerous self improvement books to help them succeed in life. However, not many of them really make it through and even fewer are able to maintain their successes. Are we all missing out on some vital links that can connect us to success or have we been left out of some top secrets?

The truth is, there really isn’t any secret to attaining success in life. The one vital point that prevented many of us from attaining success is setting goals and staying committed to our goals! If you are not married to your goals, you will not stick with it long enough to see the end results. This is when you need to make full use of your power of mind in order to achieve success!

It is not enough to simply set your goals and leave them there. You have to love your goals and stay committed to them, much like how you would love and stick with your spouse once both of them got married. Without sticking to your goals, you will not be able to stay focus and will only end up jumping from one project to the next without waiting for the first one to complete.

As such, you will remain unsuccessful and lots of incomplete projects! Any self improvement experts will tell you that loving your goals will keep you motivated and committed so it will keep you going but your goals must also not be so small that you do not see the point in accomplishing them. Set goals that are big so that you will want to enjoy your dreams at the end of it.

Do not be afraid to set goals that may seem too big for you to achieve them. As long as it is what you want to get out of life, go for it. However, be persistent in striving towards what you want regardless of how difficult it may seem at the beginning. Condition your mind into believing that you can achieve your goals and you will soon get used to working on the actions you have planned. There are in fact many who have given up even before they get started, so you need a lot of self discipline to see you through.

You will not give up on your partner before you even married him but he must definitely be someone worth marrying in the first place. Similarly, set goals that you feel are worthwhile achieving, otherwise you will tend to give up along the way. You must ensure that your goals include all things that you really want in life so you will be proud of attaining them when you are really successful.

Having said that, you must also take into considerations the achievability of your goals. Do not set goals that you know will be impossible to achieve unless you strike lottery! By that, I am referring to setting goals to achieve a million dollars in a month or less. You know that sort of goals are almost impossible to achieve and your mind will not work towards getting that. Instead, you should set long term goals for yourself.

Write down on paper what you want to achieve in the future, say 5 years. Then go on to set goals on what you want to achieve in the short term, for example, 3 years, 1 year, 6 months and then 1 month. Setting short term goals are just as vital because that will take you a step closer to attaining long term goals.

Once you have your goals in place, the next important thing to do is to work at achieving these goals. Remember, in order to be successful at self improvement, you must be committed to working hard to achieve your goals. Follow the above mentioned tips and success will be yours very soon.