Identify What You Want And Set Goals

Most optimists have direction in their lives. They are not concerned about the future because they have solid plans in place for this. If you want to be an optimist then you need to know what you want and then do whatever is necessary to get it.

 

Identifying what you want

 

Most people don’t know what they want because they do not know the best way to identify this. It is not as difficult as you may think to identify the things you want in life. You just need to find some alone time, take a pen and some paper with you and ask yourself some questions.

 

You need to think about the different areas of your life that you want to improve. Some examples could be your wealth, your health, your career or business, your skills and so on. So, focus on each of the areas of life you want to tackle and ask yourself this question each time:

 

“What do I want to achieve with my [life area]?”

 

Each time you ask yourself this question you should come up with ideas. Your subconscious mind will help you here. Write down everything that comes to mind and don’t make any judgments. If you are struggling to come up with ideas then just ask the question again.

 

At the end of this exercise, you should have a list of the things that you want. You cannot achieve all of these at once so you need to whittle these down to one or two. Look at each idea and imagine how you will feel when you have achieved it. Make the feelings as strong as possible. Go for the ideas that have the strongest feelings associated with them.

 

It is fine to start with just one idea. If you take on too many ideas at once you are unlikely to achieve any of them. We recommend that the maximum number of ideas is three. 

 

Now Create your Goals

 

For each of the ideas that you have finally decided on, you need to create a goal for them. We recommend using the SMART goal setting process for this. The SMART acronym stands for:

 

·      Specific

·      Measurable

·      Achievable

·      Realistic 

·      Timed

 

It is essential that all of your goals are specific. Just wanting more money is not going to work. You need to specify the exact amount of money that you want to make. All of your goals need to be measurable so that you can track your progress. 

 

Don’t go for goals that are not achievable or realistic. You are not going to win a gold medal at the Olympics for running if you are in your fifties and overweight. Finally, you must add a deadline to all of your goals.

 

Add an Emotional Driver

 

To really spice up your goals and make you jump out of bed every day to achieve them, you need to add strong emotion into the mix. Think back to the reason why you chose your goals in the first place. What were the feelings that you experienced when you imagined that you had already achieved them?

 

Create Plans for your Goals

 

Now that you have your goals set you need to plan how you are going to achieve them. Your aim here is to come up with daily actions that will move you closer to your goals when you complete them.