The major issue most people have with setting goals is that they aim too high, too far and expect WAY too much from themselves all in one lump. Here are a few tips that I’ve learned over the years when it comes to setting goals.

1. I don’t call them goals. I call them targets. I learned this in 1989 from a guy named Brian Tracy. Brian is a motivational speaker that was a salesman who learned how to make his goals a reality. He became financially independent and started traveling around the country giving seminars on how to create the life you want. He was the guy who first taught me that if you call goals “targets” you’ll win an internal battle every time. With targets you get “points” for getting close! With goals, just like in football, you only get “points” if you make it. You get a goose egg for missing. If you set a “target” for yourself and slip up, that’s not a bad thing because you’ll try again, you didn’t fail. Just by changing the name in my mind from goals to targets, I found myself celebrating every time I took a baby step toward my targets rather than getting all frustrated because I wasn’t moving fast enough toward a goal.

1. After calling them targets, I then made a hierarchy of my targets and all the ways that I could move slowly to my ultimate goals. Let’s take my latest target of “exercise.” I wanted to eventually get to the point of lifting weights and doing aerobics for an hour a day. Well, since I haven’t done anything but walk and move around the house for 4 months, I knew that target was going to take some “building up” on my part. So, I sketched out a plan where I walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes a day for a week, then I added sit ups and push ups the second week while continuing to walk the treadmill. By the third week, I would be ready for some aerobic work…and so on. Instead of going for the big “goal” up front, create a target and then work out the levels of tiny steps toward the target to give you a better chance of success.

1. Now that you have targets in mind as well as little steps toward them, write these things down. If you don’t bring these targets out of your head and post them on paper somewhere, they don’t really exist in our 4-dimnesional world. It is a requirement that you write or type or paint a picture of your targets and post them where you see them every day!

1. Don’t give up. When you slip up and miss a step (and we ALL do!) Don’t hang up your hat and call it quits! Keep at it. Maybe you tried to move to quick to your target. Step back a bit and take it slower. Maybe you had your steps out of sequence on the way to your target. Reevaluate your targets and steps and see if you’re trying to do too much in too many areas of your life. I suggest that you make no more than three major targets at anyone time. I usually only have one or two that I work on at once, but for you type-A personalities, feel free to go as high as three!

As you move through January and look at your targets for 2007, know that many of us are right there with you working on improving ourselves and trying to make this year a better year than 2006. This is not an easy road, but it is simple and as long as you keep giving yourself a pat on the back with each step, you’ll eventually find yourself celebrating the fact that you hit the bull’s-eye!