As I hung up the phone with a close friend, after an interesting conversation about goals and life. I rember reading a post by Maneesh Sethi that I found to be true.
You’ve probably heard this advice before somewhere. I remember being told to write down my goals in elementary school, but I never listened to the advice. Planning and writing down my goals always seemed so strange. Something that real people didn’t do – something for weird people. A recent article on LifeHacker, Why Goal Setting Makes You Cringe, explains how I felt about goal setting perfectly.
“Life goals are like religious views, salary, age, and weight — highly personal, rarely discussed, and for the ambitious and pie-in-the-sky among us, even embarrassing.”
It felt almost embarrassing to write goals!
So why should we set goals anyway?
For starters, several studies have shown a correlation between conscious goals and success on a task. With a list of goals, we know what we want – and we can plan how to get there. Setting goals is the first step in any major undertaking: financial changes, new businesses, scientific studies (you think of a hypothesis before you plan an experiment, right?).
How can I set good goals for myself?
So we need to figure out how to determine good goals. What are the characteristics of well-written, achievable goals? One of the basic frameworks for goal setting is called SMART.
- Specific
- Measurable
- Attainable
- Relevant
- Time-bound
All goals should follow these five requirements. For example, the goal “I want to be rich” meets none of the criteria: How do you measure “rich?” When do you want to be rich by?
Instead, you could say, “I want to pay off my $5,000 credit card debt by December, 2009.” Now, you have a specific (pay off the debt), measurable (all $5,000), attainable (with a plan), relevant (your finances are relevant to your life and future plans), and time-bound (by December, 2009) goal. You should make a list of all the goals you seriously want to achieve.
His post reminded me of my talks with coaches about setting SMART goals to help achieve success in ones goals!
Resources
How to Set Goals: The First Step to Financial Success is Knowing What You Want Posted by Maneesh Sethi ::Lending Club Blog
Setting S.M.A.R.T. Goals by Adam Mortimer—Prosper Inc.—Prosper Blogs
How to set SMART goals for 2008! Posted by Tom under the category Business Principles
The Top New Money Management Tools and Resources to Manage Finances Posted by Devin Willis | My Discoveries on the Road to Prosper and Learn
The Top 18 New Money Management Sites–WallStreet Fighter
Principles of Wealth Building Via Prosper Learning Coach-Posted by Devin Willis | My Discoveries on the Road to Prosper and Learn
My Discoveries on the Road to Prosper and Learn 