7 Reasons Why Goal Setting Is Important.
The importance of effective goal setting cannot be overemphasized on our individual journeys towards success.
Understanding the importance of goal setting and the benefits of working with those goals can be the defining factor that determines whether we sincerely embrace the importance of goal setting.
The more eager we are to embrace this method, the more likely we become to reach our individual definitions of personal and professional success.
Here are a few reasons why goal setting is very important.
1. Goals Guide and Align Our Focus
It can be daunting to get to where you want to be in life if you are not clear of what your aim is. Some people believe that avoiding goals means living a more care-free life.
You must have heard about this phrase countless times. “If I have no expectations, then I can’t be disappointed”?
But is that really how your life should be? Living just to avoid disappointment? It does not seem like an optimistic view in my opinion.
Without goals, you will lack a degree of direction and focus. It is true that you may be able to avoid disappointments, but avoiding disappointments does not mean you are necessarily happy.
Your goals give you direction. Your goals give you something to aim for. The target and direction you create in your mind will aide you to progress towards your actual life goals rather than just wander around aimlessly.
2. Goals Setting Will Help You Avoid ‘Shiny Object Syndrome’
The ‘shiny object syndrome’ refers to always being in pursuit of the next big thing, constantly switching your goals based on what you think is most fun, easy and interesting at the time, but not actually giving yourself time to accomplish any of those goals.
You seldom get anywhere because you continually change the direction you are heading in. This is one of the consequences that may occur if you decide to live a life without goals.
Your goals in most cases aid you to create mental blockages, or blinders, that help you to remain focused on what you think is important and avoid the things that are second priority.
When you map out goals for yourself, you are likely to avoid things that distract you from achieving and accomplishing those goals. Setting goals helps you to ignore other shiny objects because you have taken your time to make some mental notes that remind you what it is that you want for your life.
Your goals act as a subconscious disincentive to anything less than your main priorities. This is what aides you to reach your personal definition of success.
3. Goals Can Turn Your Biggest Goals into Manageable Steps
So many of us have big hopes and dreams. It is one of the things that make our lives exciting!
But a lot of people fail to take the time to figure out how they can effectively get from point Y to point Z. So, sadly, they seldom achieve those goals.
When we look at our dreams sometimes, we tend to convince ourselves that only a few people can ever achieve such dreams, so we write ourselves off as people who are not meant to reach such level of success.
Looking at the end product of a goal can be intimidating, challenging, and can discourage us from even pursuing them.
But goal setting helps us to break huge and intimidating goals into smaller units. These small steps are more achievable and it can help you to establish momentum and will encourage you to keep working towards the next phase of your goal.
4. Goals Encourage You to Take Action
Not only does effective goal setting help you break down your bigger goals into smaller, more manageable units, it also encourages you to start taking action on those goals. After all, a plan is completely useless if you are not willing to invest the effort required to execute it.
Contents
10 EFFECTIVE WAYS TO RESTRUCTURE YOUR VISION IN 2022
Setting your goals and putting your plans in place will motivate you to start taking action towards achieving them. These goals give you something to plan and work with. Importantly, they help to push you forward. Personally, I like to write out and place my goals somewhere that I will regularly see them, this constantly serves as a reminder of my utmost priorities. It allows me to focus on taking progressive actions towards achieving these goals daily.
5. Goal Setting Helps You to Improve Notably
This is something that so many personal development and self-improvement writers talk about, -constant improvement. The goals that you set for yourself will definitely shape you into the person you want to become. They will shape your character, also, your goals can help you keep track of your progress as you strive for this type of development. Essentially, having goals helps you determine where you started, where you are now, and how much further you will go. In this manner, your goal setting can serve as milestones and benchmarks that help you determine how rapid you are advancing towards your most important goals!
6. Goal Setting Keeps You Accountable
Not only does setting goals help you keep track of your progress, it also is a means through which you can be accountable to yourself. Too many goals fail because they lack this crucial aspect of recording accountability. For instance, I have the goal to buy a property, which is great. Most people would support that goal. However, this goal lacks accountability. When do I want to accomplish this goal and what steps do I need to take to get there? Are crucial questions that the original goal leaves unanswered.
9 Effective Ways to Enhance Your Personal Development – ExpertsNG
A much more descriptive and specific goal could be to buy a property within the next 6 months. And then I will plan to start saving 200k weekly, and then increase it to 300k each week.
This goal outlines the deadline as well as the steps I am going to take to achieve it. This plan will keep me accountable because if I fail to maintain my progression schedule, I will know that I am not going to achieve the goal on time. In addition, it can serve as a highlighter that helps to signify when something is hindering my progress that I may not have originally accounted for.
This tells me that I need to re-evaluate what I am doing and find out what adjustments I can make to facilitate my success.
7. Goals Make You Feel Good
Sincerely speaking, the progress you feel when you set and achieve goals can become really motivating and overly addicting (in a good way)!
The dopamine release you get from achieving your goals is like a little reward for your brain that constantly motivates you to try and hit the next goal.
Having well-defined goals will help you to feel better about yourself and your life in general, especially when you abide by those goals, actively work towards achieving them, and end up accomplishing and exceeding your initial expectations.
