By Tahlia Mandie, Direction Exploring     Setting Goals can be a challenging yet rewarding experience for all. Goal setting is a process about thinking about your future, and the steps you need to take in order to turn your vision into a reality. 

Having clearly defined goals can give you a sense of purpose, hope, self-confidence and optimism, while similarly can encourage you to keep on going and fight any challenges you may be faced with.

Starting to think about your goals

Goals can be short-term, medium-term or long-term. When thinking about the “big picture”, it is important to think about the smaller steps that you need to achieve before reaching your final destination. This is a great tool to access and check if you are going on the right path. Start to think about your 5-year goal, your 1-year goal, 6 - months and 1-month goals, and similarly, what are the smaller steps you need to take within this goal plan.

For example, instead of having “I am going to lose 50 kilos” as a goal, it is more powerful to say “I am going to lose 30 kilograms in one year”. This will be more achievable considering there is a lot of preparation, time and energy that is needed to achieve this goal.

Goals can change direction and course along the way. Disappointment in not completing a step within your goal plan, or not reaching your goal does not matter as long as you can learn and grow with the experience. As your goals will change, it is important to continuously re-evaluate and assess how SMART your goals are, and thus, what needs to happen differently in order to reach them.

SMART Goals:

S – Specific
M – Measurable
A – Achievable
R – Realistic
T – Time-bound

Tips to remember

• Keep things in perspective – Remember that goals are always evolving and changing.

• Write your goals down – writing your goals down gives them more power and strength

• Be precise with your goals – What is the specific goal you want to work towards?

• Build your supporting team – Who can help you achieve your goals? Everyone will have a different supporting team, but it is this team that can similarly drive you and motivate you along the way.

Some inspiring words

“Your role in achieving your goal must be giving your all. Involve yourself whole: with your heart, your mind and your soul.”   Victoria Holtz

“Write it down. Written goals have a way of transforming wishes into wants; cant's into cans; dreams into plans; and plans into reality. Don't just think it - ink it!” Author Unknown

“The victory of success is half won when one gains the habit of setting goals and achieving them.”
Og Mandino

About the author:

Tahlia Mandie is a psychotherapist, family counsellor and mum who runs her own private practice, Direction Exploring and now runs her own blog, The Parenting Files - because families matter. Discussing all things parenting and family matters to the serious stuff to the not so serious stuff, the parenting files is spoken with a little witt, quirk and humour. Tahlia also writes regular columns and articles for magazines, newspapers and other online forums.

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