The Elements of a Goal...Part 1

The Mid American Stock Car Series flagman waving the checkered flag at the end of a series stockcar heat race. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

goal (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee)

My last couple of blog postings talked about goals and the ones that I am trying to achieve this year so I decided that it would be good to go over what a goal is for those of you that are having trouble getting started or working toward those important things in your life. Today I will go over what a goal needs to contain and next time I will discuss the different types of goals and how to set them.

As I mentioned a goal must have some critical ingredients and I will discuss each one of these one at a time: specific, have a time limit, be written down, achievable and challenging.

The Year is Half Over...How are You Doing?

nanowrimo, day 16 goal (Photo credit: paloetic)

Hard as it is to think about, Monday will mark the half way point in 2014. While many people let it pass by without even thinking about it, I consider it a good time to look at what has been accomplished so far and what goals are you lagging behind in.

At the beginning of the year like every year I wrote down a set of goals. These are not New Years resolutions they are goals because the have the necessary qualities of a goal: specific, have a time limit, written down, achievable, and challenging.

I started the year with 18 major goals which all work toward my life goals. Then every month I set goals that work toward the yearly goals, weekly goals that work toward the monthly goals, and finally daily goals that work toward accomplishing those weekly goals. I will often end up with about 30 to 35 goals every week and will accomplish anywhere from at least 20 to often more than 30 of them.