More on goal setting...

Image by Darrren Hester via Flickr

Last week I discussed the importance of having goals. Today I will go over the different ranges of goals and how they interrelate to each other.

First you have your long range goals. These are goals that are more than five years away. While it seems like a long time, your other goals are ones that build up to these goals. For example you can have a goal that in ten years you want to be able to sell your business and retire. Another long range goal could be to have a certain amount of money in the bank for your retirement.

On the personal side you could set a goal to have your child’s college education funded by a certain time. Another example would be that you plan to have your dream home in 7 years.

You need to take the time to deice where you want to be in 5, 10, 20 years and so on and what it is going to take to get you there.

Next down the list is your short range goals. These are goals that you want to achieve in 5 years but will not be accomplished in the next year. They are goals that are stepping stones to reaching your long range goals.

For example, if you set a goal to have enough money in the bank to retire in 20 years, in 5 years you need to have a certain amount of money in the bank. Or you can set a goal to be debt free in the next 2 years that will set you on course to hit your big goal of retiring without having to worry about Social Insecurity.

You could set a business goal that in five years you want your business to be making 2 million dollars or you want to move into a new building in 3 years.

Finally you have your short range goals. If the medium range goals build you toward your long range goals then you probably can figure out that short range goals build you toward your medium range goals. These are goals that you plan to accomplish in the next year.

Short range goals are broken down even further to year goals, monthly goals, weekly goals, and daily goals. Once again you look at where you want to be in the next year and plan your goals accordingly.

What do you have to do this month in order to reach your one year goal? Once you know what you have to do this month, you want to break it down and figure out what you will have to do this week.

Of course you know what is coming next, once you figure on what you need to accomplish this week then you want to break it down and figure out what you have to do today to reach that goal this week and so on.

At this point you probably feel overwhelmed. It will take too much time to set all these goals, and you don’t have the time.

You will be amazed what you can accomplish when you are actually setting goals for yourself on a daily basis. You begin to realize what is important and what you just do not need to do.

Other great thing about short range goals is that they get you excited. When you hit that short range goal it energizes you and the next thing you know you are busting out the next you and the one beyond that.

Now there will be days that you are just hit with multiple road blocks and it seems that nothing will go right. You have your goals but you just cannot hit any of them that day. That is when you need to take a look at your long range goals to get some motivation. Also take a look at what goals you have accomplished to see how far you have come.