If there was one thing I wish I had learnt when I was young was this easy way to understand goals and how to use it effectively.  Out of all the books I’ve read regarding personal development and goal setting, one book that explains it the best is The Flight Plan by Brian Tracy.  It was like the lights went on and somebody was home.

Firstly, you need to decide what it is you want from life, if you could live your dream life what would it be?  What career or work would you do?  Where would you live, what house would you have, what car would you drive, what lifestyle would you be living?  What type of friends would you have, what salary would you earn, etc., and then look at how you are going to achieve this? Think of your life like you would a business plan.  In a business plan you need your mission statement, you need to know what exactly it is you want to do and achieve, how much capital you would need, who are the key members of your business what their roles are. How any staff you would need, training, equipment and you would do the sums and so on.  Now think of your life in this way.

Example, and this is just a rough example to give you an idea:

Let’s say if you had your dream life you would have a 3 bedroom home by the sea, you would be driving a Mercedes X, you would want to earn £80,000 pa and you would want to work with animals because you just have a passion for animals.  You want to be around people who add value to your life and so on.

Knowing this information can be life changing and this is why:

Now you can focus and you have a bit more clarity. And clarity:

• Eliminates confusion
• Helps you be more decisive
• Prevents you from making the wrong choices

Let’s look at this goal. Now it is time to decide – at this point of time in your life and looking at this goal – what the most important thing to do right now would be.  Let’s say it is getting a job to pay the bills. Ok, so what type of job are you going to get? Again, look at your goal.  Maybe you want to try and get a job working with animals.  Let’s say this is not possible because you don’t have the education or because there are no jobs like that in the area where you live.  So you can either decide to move to an area where there are jobs like this or you can decide that for now you will get a job to pay the bills, but you are going to do some volunteer work on weekends working with animals, or find a course you can do to get that education.

Are you getting the picture?  So, whenever you are faced with a setback or you need to make a decision, look at your goal and ask yourself  “Is this taking me closer to my goal or is it moving me away from my goal?” 9 times out of 10 you will then make the right decision based on what you want from your life.

Let’s say you are struggling with people in your life who are pulling you down or are not good for you. Again, ask youself, “are these people adding value to my life?”, “are they taking me closer to my goal or moving me away from my goal?”, and this should help you get perspecitve and help you make those tough decisions that are not always pleasant but necessary.

Lastly, make a commitment to take at least an hour each day to do one thing that will help you to get to your goal. If, for example, you want to have fancy things, but you are useless at managing your money, then, perhaps, you need to learn about managing your finances better. You can  also do a course or read books that will help you with it.