Lessons in Goal Setting

Get in your car and start driving. Don't consult a map. Don't think. Make turns randomly. What are the odds that you will arrive at your intended destination?

Everyone's life should include spontaneity. Exploration. Novelty. But if you never set clear goals for yourself, you are likely to drive your life aimlessly, perhaps for years, without getting where you want to go.

Effective goal setting is easier than you might think. It doesn't demand that you rigidly adhere to outdated goals, just because you set them years ago. It doesn't involve reading hundreds of business or self-help books.

In fact, goal setting can be summed up as the application of two key ideas:

• Ultimate goals
• Immediate goals

In Changeways Clinic Goal Setting Lessons, you will define your Ultimate Goals: where you want to be in a year, in two years, in five, in ten. A series of exercises tailored to your own situation will help out.

Then you will identify the path toward your Ultimate Goals: the skills you will need, the resources to cultivate, the barriers in your way. By the end of the first or second session you will have a short list of Immediate Goals - the small steps that you can begin carrying out en route to your chosen destination.

Along the way, you will learn strategies for enhancing your motivation and interest. You may realize that you no longer hold some long-cherished goals from your past, or that some of your goals are actually imposed by others.

Goal setting lessons are not intended to go on indefinitely. We suggest a set of five lessons. By that time, you will understand the basic principles and should be on your way.

CAUTION: Goal setting will accomplish absolutely nothing on its own. In each session you will set tasks for yourself to carry out before the next session. By the end of the sessions, you will have practiced the procedure sufficiently to continue on your own. Your practice must be a priority in order for you to benefit from this work.