Goal Setting for Busy People: Clear Goals You Actually Reach

The daily life of a person can become very complex. Many tasks, a lot of stress, many thoughts to process... Many times it makes us lose ourselves in the details, and we do not see a global vision of how things are happening. That is why, in this section, I would like to stop to reflect for a second.

In this course, I would like you to take the necessary tools to set your own goals. Not anyone else's! In this regard, the goals you set will make much more sense if they are aligned with a global vision of your person, where you are and where you are going.

Have you ever thought about the difference between a goal and a dream? Dreams seem like something much more unattainable, which is there, and we are never going to achieve it. There is even a popular phrase that says that dreams are objectives without an end date.

When we delimit what we want at a given time, and give it certain properties, that becomes a tangible objective, something that we can achieve, and it moves away from being something unattainable.

In this video, I present to you an exercise called "Wheel of life", or the Wheel of Life. The exercise is based on putting a note from 0 to 10, with 0 being the worst, and 10 being the best in different areas such as: Health, work, love, spirituality, family, money, fun, friends. Below is a link to an interactive website that you can use. But simply giving each one a note is enough on any piece of paper.

Have you ever heard of values? Values are no more those aspects of life that matter to us. Each person values a different way in different areas of life. For example, good humour may be something essential for someone, while there may be another person who values more the closeness with the family. And you will tell me... but I already know what is important to me! I'm sure yes. However, sometimes we face complex situations, both emotionally and physically, and the decisions we make may not be entirely consistent with what we really value, leading us to a position that is perhaps not so optimal.

This concept refers to the way of thinking. While there are people who can think in a very positive or optimistic way, there are also people who can think in a more negative way. It is very important to emphasize what you say to yourself at each moment of the process.

For example, if you are trying to lose weight, and inwardly you say to yourself. In the past I've already tried, and I couldn't, and I don't know then that it's going to be different, I won't be able to either.

What is the probability that you will achieve your goal like this? Not very high, right?

As the title of this section indicates, in this video we will talk about the personal reflection journal. This is an extremely important tool for everything. If you don't have a journal, I suggest, and I emphasize, that you go to the store and buy one. A blank notebook assigned as a mindset journal. It's just that, you don't need anything more sophisticated. If you rush me, a few sheets of paper folded in half with a couple of staples. A place to write on a daily basis. It doesn't have to cost you money.

Why is this journal so essential?

Limiting thoughts are those conscious or unconscious thoughts that tell us what we are not capable of doing. Even though this is not true. When talking about this, I like to mention that fable of a circus elephant. It is said that an elephant was trained when he was little, tied to a stick, and the elephant tried and tried to get free, until he realized he couldn't. All his efforts were useless, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get free. From there, he formed in his head the belief that he could not free himself.

Growing up, he became a huge beast. It's not too hard to realize that a full-grown elephant could uproot the entire circus tent if it wanted to, let alone a single stick. However, that belief that he formed when he was a baby was with him, and he feels that he is not able to free himself from the stick. This is only a fable, but it illustrates very well what happens to us very often to a small extent.

In this chapter, we've talked about the importance of knowing where we are right now, talked about the 4 phases of learning, and encouraged HOT goals as things that really make you tickle on the inside and absolutely need to be achieved. Then, we go on to do two very valuable exercises that allow us to know ourselves, first, in general areas of life with ´The wheel of life´, and then about our values, summarizing the things that matter most to us in 9 values, of which we even selected 3. We learned about the growth mindset that we must adopt to move forward at full speed, and we looked closely at our limiting thoughts, emphasizing starting our self-reflection journal to capture Both these and other feelings that can block us in our goals.

Now that you have the different areas of your life on paper, in this chapter, we start looking forward. What do you want to achieve? Take 5 minutes to reflect on your goals, things you want to achieve.

How do they align with the results that came out on your wheel of life? How do they relate to your values? How could you equip your goals with a little more than what really motivates you and is important for you? How could you add more of your values there? Great!

Have you ever heard of a vision board? A vision board is nothing more than a graphical representation of your goals. On the horizontal axis, you will put from left to right different dates of termination: 1 month, 3 months, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, and 10 years. That's it, now let's fill each of these sections with images.

Pull out a sheet of paper, or a white board. What you prefer, but I want you to have plenty of space to write. Tidy, messy, however you like. It doesn't matter, things will take shape after.

From there. Take a goal. From that goal, start thinking about what you need to do to achieve it. It doesn't matter if things are not clear. Put what you think right now, and we'll refine it over time.

Take out the secondary ideas from the main idea in the form of a mind map or tree. If you need more space, do not hesitate to take more sheets, we need space so that the ideas are well embodied. Once you have done the first layer of ideas... Do a second one. The subtasks, most likely, can be split more.

Divide and conquer. Does this quote ring a bell?

In this module, we have begun to look ahead. In order to have goals that are really significant for us, we have looked towards what is our ideal life, which is what we really want. We have created our vision board with a long term vision of when we want to have those goals. Next, we have begun to divide these abstract realisations of things we want, or dreams of more concrete and tangible things. We have subdivided into sub-goals, made smaller and smaller by dividing them, either into in the form of a mindmap, where we can take direct action.

Well, now we have done a few personal reflection exercises, we know well what we want, and how to break it down, so we have already done important work towards how to set objectives that stand out and are of interest to us.

This technique is called SMART goals. You will see that we have gone through most of the points, but I will still go one by one defining them.

SMARTER goals, or SMARTER objectives is nothing more than two more points added to the previous technique.

Today we have millions of sources of information approaching us from all sides.

In this module, we have seen different techniques to achieve your goals. We have seen the SMART objectives, and its extension, the SMARTER objectives. In addition, we have put our eye on the very common trap of information overload.

In this chapter I will present a series of strategies on how to make sure we don't abandon them and get to completion.

As we have already said several times throughout the course, keeping a diary is a very important resource to achieve your goals.

The objectives are set from a rational point of view. We want to achieve something and common sense tells us what we have to do. So much so that we can pause, and draw up a well-defined plan about where to go.

This is a very necessary principle in life coaching, where the objectives are essential to achieve the goals. It is always suggested in what way the person who wants to achieve the objective will have the accounting of it.

This strategy consists of constantly reminding yourself of your ultimate goal. A lot happens in one day, and it is very easy for our focus to divert, and go to something else.

For that reason, having a reminder that we see often will make us think about our goal, bringing it back to the focus of importance.

Habits shape who you are. If you see someone in shape, you can deduce that this person does some type of regular exercise and eats in a certain way. If you see someone knowledgeable, you can also deduce that she has some kind of study routine. Therefore, habits are very important. Habits shape who we are. These are things that you will repeat regularly.

This point serves to illustrate that when you have a goal that you want to achieve, you will unconsciously look for ways to achieve it and exceed it. You are going to do it all. You are going to modify your environment, you are going to set reminders, you are going to write in your journal. Suddenly, your life is going to be connected to that goal.

In this chapter we have addressed the possible problems that can cause us to abandon our goal. We have given strategies to stick to them. Among them, we have a diary that allows us to introspect and check what our feelings think about how everything is going. To achieve this, we have to go all out, with our common sense, and give space to our feelings to be comfortable with it. On the other hand, we have proposed collaborating with a colleague by telling him about the objective and having him as a witness to it. We have also touched on the issue of putting constant reminders in strategic, highly visible places in our space. We have emphasized habits to avoid falling into the trap of having the initial motivation, short-lived.

Thank you very much for staying with us!

Bonus Lecture