Achieving Goal Setting

Welcome to Part Five of your personal goal settings guidance for achieving goal setting.

How does it feel having your clearly defined and written personal goals in front of you? Wonderful hey! Well, today we're going to look at your goal objectives for achieving them.

Just before that though, here's a quick recap on the material covered in Part Four of goal personal planning setting success guidance, where you learned how to effectively build on your strengths, how to identify and manage likely challenges, barriers, blocks to your personal goal, as well as how to draw on your past and present achievements to motivate you even further.

Before we go any further, I want you to go straight to the following weight loss and exercise. Once you have read that page and journaled your answers to the questions there, return here to continue. Even if your objective is not a weight loss goal, the information there is still very relevant to this stage of achieving goal setting.

If you have not already done so, you'll also want to grab with both hands, the following - it's really excellent stuff:

Listen to Free Silva UltraMind Training Online
Get a 9 chapter eBook and 30 minute audio on the Silva UltraMind System - for FREE. Special Promotion this week. Click here now.

Now that you have your personal goals in place, at this stage of achieving goal setting, you must also have a plan of action. That is, the smaller every-day steps or tasks you will now undertake toward achieving your personal goals settings.

If we use the weightloss goal example, you will have two clear written goals; one for weightloss exercise and the other for your weight loss diet. To arrive at the steps you need to take toward achieving goal settings success, answer the following questions, using your journal to record your responses:

What one or two things can I do this minute that will bring me closer to my goal?

What additional information do I need?

How overweight am I/how much weight do I want to lose?

What is my Body Mass Index (BMI)?

Where? Or from whom can I get help and advice?

What are my interests?

What do I enjoy doing?

What weightloss exercise would best suit me?

For some additional guidance on all the above, I strongly recommend you read the following weight loss exercise guidance.

Its important to choose activities you enjoy and will have fun doing. A good starting point is going with the things that interest you, for example, do you enjoy walking, swimming, dvd exercise, aerobics, jogging, taking up tennis, dancing, video yoga etc.,

Your second goal will involve your weight loss diet and for this goal you'll need to consider and journal your answers to weightloss diet-specific questions, along the lines of those outlined above. For instance:

Do I want to self-manage my weight loss diet? Or,

Would I benefit from consulting a nutritionist?

Which weightloss diet or weight-loss program do I want to follow?

Do I just want to reduce my carb intake? Or,

Is the Atkins Diet suitable for me?

What would be a good Healthy Eating Diet?

How can I start Planning A Healthy Eating Habit

What would be a good starting point?

It's no good choosing a diet you are unlikely to enjoy because that would be a recipe for you losing motivation thus heightening the risk of abandoning, or not achieving goal setting target. Which ever approach you decide on, you'll now need to set yourself mini goals to learn, to develop your knowledge or to gather the information you will need to achieve your bigger goals. This is the Action Plan part of your personal goals settings, where you take small yet determined steps to achieving goal setting and the outcome you want.

You will have already identified some of these smaller steps (or goals) from the exercise you carried out in Part Four of your personal goals settings guidance.

You will need to consider how often and when you'll carry out these actions. For instance, will you work toward your goals on Saturdays and Sundays or will you take the weekend off. You decide! You must also have in place a means of measuring your progress toward your goals.

Achieving goal setting with action planning

Using your journal, you're now going to set out your Action Plan. Here is a format that is simple to use but feel free to use your own. Subscribed members: you will find the link for the following Action Plan Template below.

Using a whole page, draw a large square table in your journal

You will need 4 evenly spaced columbs and one 1" row at the top

You're now going to create 4 headings across the top of each columb, which will make up your action plan headings. In the first, write 'Goals'. In the second, write 'Action', in the third, 'Result' and in the fourth, 'Progress'

Achieving goal setting action plan guidance

Prepare a separate Action plan for each week's activities. Here is why?

If you set yourself a goal to lose 4 pounds in weight within one month then over a period of four weeks you'll need to break your goal down into smaller achievable steps. You do this by setting a weekly mini goal to lose 1 pound in week one. You do the same for week two and so on.

Under the 'goal' heading, write your goal - e.g. 'Starting today (date), by (date) I will lose 1 pound in weight'. Use the remainder of this section to list each day of the week.

Under the Action heading: You will write the physical activities or tasks you're going to undertake each day, toward that goal - e.g. next to 'Monday', you might write I will do a dvd exercise workout for 45 minutes between 7 - 8.a.m. Keep listing all the other actions you will carry out each day, under this heading. For e.g. you might also want to start walking to work or doing a 30 minute swimming session once or twice each week, or you might want to look into a weightloss program. What is important is that you must state what you plan to do and the date and time you plan to do them.

Do remember that your actions may also include things such as researching, reading, consulting a fitness trainer or gathering information that is relevant to your goal, so do record these too

Note: You might just want to start off with dvd exercise twice per week plus swimming once or twice. Keep your steps small and managable for you and what you are able to cope with comfortably.

Under the 'Outcome' heading, record how you got on. You might have worked through the entire 45 minutes of the dvd exercise or you might have only got half way through - that doesn't matter. What's important is that you recognise your limit

Note: You could now try to work up to the full 45 minutes by revising your actions. For example, by adding on 5 minutes each time you do your workout, until you reach your target of the full 45 minutes. On the other hand, if for example you found 45 minutes particularly hard going, you might feel you'd be better off with a more gentle form of exercise to condition yourself before you tackle your dvd workout. In this case, you may consider swimming 3 times each week would be a better option for achieving your goal setting target.

Under the 'Progress' columb, record your views on your achievement, in comparison to yesterday or last week. This is where you give yourself some praise, e.g 'good workout - really proud of myself'. You can also note your personal insights, which you can later journal more fully

By the end of the week those small achievements will have moved you significantly closer toward achieving goal setting objectives and your bigger goal.

What are you going to do from here on? Don't just leave it there! Your achievement means your target for achieving goal setting just got bigger. Build on your progress. Could you now set your week two goal to do a dvd or video workout at a slightly more challenging level, now that you have accomplished the beginner level?

Achieving goal setting - Reviewing Your Personal Goals

Do you see how you may need to revise your actions as you go along? Your Action Plan is not set in stone. Remain flexible and you'll get the most out of achieving goal setting objectives.

Your Action Plan provide the means of reviewing your progress toward your personal goals. At the end of each week, you will have a clear idea as to how you're doing and what further actions you need to take, based on your previous outcomes/progress. This is where the Health Womens Health Wheel at this stage of your goal setting activity will again come in useful. Simply use it to measure your current level of satisfaction with your progress toward achieving goal setting success with your weight loss goal.

Having this degree of clarity will help you to gauge your progress, revise and change as you feel the need. By the end of the week I know you'll be writing in the progress columb 'I achieved my ...... goal for this week. Give yourself a clap on the back - I'll be so proud of you.

Simply follow the same format for your weight-loss diet goal. You can either use the same Action Plan for both goals or use a a separate one.

Achieving goal setting - Tips To Strengthen Your Motivation

Carry your written (main goals) with you at all times, so you can read them at any time.

Do also read your goals first thing in the morning and last thing at night. This is a powerful technique for keeping your goals at the forefront of your mind, to strengthen your motivation and desire for achieving them

Positive Visualisation: is another powerful technique for strengthening your resolve in achieving goal setting success. Simply imagine in vivid terms, you achieving your goal setting outcome. How do you look, and feel? Picture yourself in that special outfit you dream about -aah!

Shape Your Reality, Control Your Habits & Gain Better Control of the Events that Influence Your Life

A FREE excellent self-empowerment program that teaches you how to use your mind to take greater control of your life, through meditation, goal setting, intuition, healing etc.,

Listen to Free Silva UltraMind Training Online
Get a 9 chapter eBook and 30 minute audio on the Silva UltraMind System - for Free. Special Promotion this week. Click here now.

Achieving goal setting - Rewarding Yourself

On achievement of your goal, do follow through on the reward you set yourself. This most important step shouldn't be overlooked. Plan a small treat each week for attaining your milestone. Your reward will serve as a positive reinforcement of your achieving goal setting outcome and will motivate you even more toward building on your progress and setting additional and bigger goals.

Please be sure to consult your doctor and/or fitness expert before embarking on any weight loss diet or weight loss exercise goals.

Congratulations! You've reached the end of your achieving goal setting guidance course but I certainly hope that you will continue with this good practice of ongoing personal goal settings for success in every aspect of your life.

Don't forget to claim your FREE self-empowerment program Audio Ebook - "The Unlimited You". It is an absolutely excellent gift that will teach you how to use your mind to take greater control of your life, goals and ambitions. (it comes highly recommmended).

Do drop me a line and let me know how you're getting on. I'd love to hear of your successes, what has worked for you and what hasn't. I would also welcome your feed-back on this 5 part achieving goal setting guidance and on how it could be improved further.

In the meantime, remember.....

"There is no giant step that does it. It's a lot of little steps" (Peter A Cohen)

For Ease, you can access all the previous stages of achieving goal setting guidance here:

Part One...Part Two...Part Three... Part Four

You can gain full access to all the goals settings forms and goal worksheets that accompany this personal goal settings sequence, by subscribing to Health Womens Free Newsletter, Inside Insight

Subscribed Members

Access Your Goals Settings Action Plan Form Five Here

Goalsetting Result Form 4

Access Part Three: Writing Your Goals

Access Prioritising Your Values/ Clarifying What You Want, Worksheet Two Here

Access Part One: Core Health Values Worksheet Here

The information on this site is purely of educational value and is not intended to replace your seeking medical advice. You must consult your doctor over all your health concerns.

Subscribe To Health Womens Free Newsletter, 'Inside Insight'
and receive up to date information, news, healthy eating recipes/tips and beauty secrets + FREE goal setting forms

Subscribe to receive your Free 5 Part Mini Course on setting your personal goals, via email. Don't worry, there's no strings attached and I won't bombard you with unsolicited mailings - that's a promise.

Contact Me

Return From Achieving Goal Setting To Health Womens Healthy Living Goals Home Page

SBI!