Why set goals?
Goal Setting is a process for planning what you want to achieve. When you set yourself goals, you are making plans and taking control of what you want to accomplish throughout your life.

By setting goals, you can:
- See what you can achieve
- Gain confidence to achieve even more
- Measure your successes
- Take pride in what you’ve achieved


Long-term goals and short-term goals.
Long-term goals are also known as Final Goals and short-term goals may also be known as Journey Goals. Long-term or Final goals will provide you with inspiration whilst the short-term or Journey goals will keep you motivated on the way to your Final goal.
You might have a long-term goal to move to the country within 1 year, but there will be many short-term goals that you will have to accomplish to achieve the long-term goal.

Long-term goal:
- Move to the country within a year

Short-term goals:
- DIY and spring-clean the house for valuation
- Put the house on the market
- Find a house in the new area
- Complete moving process
- Move into the new area

Within these short term goals there may be other smaller goals that you have to complete. Putting the house on the market may involve contacting many estate agents to arrange for a market valuation. One of the tasks to achieve the short-term goal could be to contact 4 agents in one week.

A long-term goal can seem very difficult to achieve but if it is broken down into smaller bite size short-term goals, it makes the long-term goal seem much more obtainable.

When setting your goal, make sure that it is:
• Positive - You want to focus on what you do want in your life, not what you don’t
• Specific - You need to have a clear definition or target of what you want to achieve
• Measurable - You must be able to quantify your goal so you know when you have reached it
• Realistic - Your goal should be just out of your immediate reach. Goals should not be too easy for you to achieve or too hard.


Motivation
You have now decided on your long-term goal and you have started your journey towards it by achieving some of your short-term goals.

How do you keep yourself going towards
your final goal?
Keep yourself motivated towards your final goal by visualising how you will feel when you achieve your goal. Take 10 minutes every day to picture your final goal. Take notice of how you feel during the visualisation.

You can also collect items that are associated with you achieving your goal. For instance, going back
to the final goal of moving to the country, collect some pictures of the area that you want to move to and put them around your home and at work. That way you will never lose focus of what you are trying to achieve.