How To Be Sure You're Working Toward Your Goals

When you have goals, and things you want to do in life, it pays to review them every now and then, and make sure you're still working on them. I checked one of mine today: I'm a lightworker. However, I haven't actually been doing much to help other people: I've been rather self-centered as of late. So once I've adapted to polyphasic sleep, I'm going to spend some of my new time helping others.

Here's a method to review your goals with, nice and simple.

Step 1: Write each of your goals down on a piece of paper.

You only need to do this for vague goals. If your goal is to lose weight, just step on the scale and you'll know how well you're doing. For example, I don't need to constantly check on my 101 in 1001 List, since it's obvious how much I've done. Goals like "Improve my blog" "Be a lightworker" etc. require clarification.

The following steps should be repeated for each goal.

Step 2: Ask yourself 'Do I still want to achieve this goal?'

If you don't want to achieve this, be honest. One of my goals was once to be an author: but now, while I'd like to write, it's a hobby, not something I want to make into a career. I'm not as interested in writing novels as I am in writing blog posts.

If the answer is no, move on to the next step.

Step 3: Ask yourself 'What have I done in the past week to help me in this goal?'

If the answer is 'Nothing' than you're probably not on track. Note: use your common sense here. I haven't done any work on moving towards my goal of getting my Web Design Diploma in the last week, but that's because I've already enrolled and classes haven't yet started.

If you are well on track, you can move on to the next goal. If not, move on to the next step.

Step 4: Ask yourself 'What can I do this week to help me in this goal?'

If you think for a few minutes (even seconds) you should be able to come up with some implementable actions to help you with whatever goal you're working on. If you can't think of a single thing, perhaps your goal isn't too implementable right now, and you should pick a different one.

So hopefully this method should help you determine which goals to keep and how to work on the goals you stick with. Steady progress on your goals is an integral part of personal growth.

Until next time, may the goals you have truly matter.