Goal Setting

You can’t just muck around in your life;

you better take off the waders, put on the diving gear and get going! I have been working diligently on writing down my goals, not just long term goals, but daily as well. My first goal is to choose happiness today. I write this in my journal to impact my brain with the importance of the message. I have discovered too, writing goals increases my happiness in all areas of my life because I feel focused and I have a vision, not only just for today, but for everyday. However, writing daily goals is not about writing a to do list, though one goal might be to accomplish so many tasks today from your to do list. Writing daily goals is about the tasks or activities which will bring you happiness. What does goal setting have to do with happiness? Plenty! People who set goals for themselves express a higher degree of satisfaction and obtain a greater level of success in life, and those who actually write down there goals do even better because the action of writing them down and having your goal set concretely in front of you will help you visualize the goal and make it real. A study conducted with Harvard students over a ten year period showed that the 3% of the graduating class that had not only defined their goals but written them down, ten years later were earning ten times more than their fellow classmates. If you want to be happy each and every day of your life, then it only makes sense that having goals and striving towards them will help you in choosing happiness everyday. How then do you set goals? You have to take time to really consider what you feel is important, what you want to achieve in life and how you are going to achieve it. Then you have to step by step work towards each goal. I have known most of my life I wanted to be a writer, but had never set any goals towards this dream. I have written sporadically over the years, but did not set a specific goal until I conceived of the idea for Choosing Happiness after Divorce. When I first began writing, however, I didn’t realize how important goal setting could be to me. I had days when I would write for awhile and days when I wouldn’t. I only made progress when I finally set a goal of 1000 words per day and required myself to sit at the computer until I achieved this goal. At this point, I began to make progress and I loved the feeling of accomplishment at the end of my writing session. Since then, I have been writing goals and daily working to achieve them and now I am achieving my dream of being a published author. I continue to learn more and more about goal setting. Brian Tracy’s book, Goals! How to Get Everything You Want-Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible, is a great source for learning how to set goals. If you are not setting goals, I encourage you to begin this discipline. Thinking about what you want from you life and then taking the time to write the goals necessary to achieve what you want is worth all the effort required. Take time in your journal this week to seriously think about your goals and get going! Choose Happiness!