In previous articles I have highlighted the benefits of goal setting. I have talked about the things that are holding you back and I explained why we need to get discontent with the status quo. Now it’s time to actually sit down and write it down.

Where do you start and how?If you have had no problem doing this – good for you! But I know that some people reading this are here because they really want to, but they just don’t know WHERE to begin. In actual fact, I think that if you are one of the people reading this – you are struggling with exactly that.

The thing is most of us don’t have goals much beyond what’s for supper tonight – if you are the person responsible for making it, you may have thought about is slightly earlier than someone who is just going to sit down and eat it. Life moves so fast that you just focus on getting through the tasks in your day, and you don’t give yourself the time to want or dream about more. Some people reading this might have a few other goals like finishing their study course or going on holiday, but few of us have even those. How do we fix that?

Questions you might be asking by now are:

1. How am I going to accomplish setting goals far higher and far bigger, if I struggle just to get through the normal tasks in my day?
   Answer: By knowing you deserve it, that you can do it and by writing it down!
2. What are good goals to have?
   Answer: Anything you want or dream about, no matter how big or small!
3. Are my goals too silly or too impossible to even write down?
   Answer: They are YOUR goals! No one gets to tell you what you want, or can or cannot have! Nothing is too silly or too impossible to not be on your list.

So where do you begin?

Well a good first goal to have is to have 1000 goals that you want to accomplish in the next 30 years or even more!“WOW! Are you serious Roy?! That’s a lot!”Well no, it’s not that much at all really if you think about it. But if that’s too intimidating start with a goal to have 500 or even 100. Any number that feels possible to you now. A lot of people think that in order to have goals they have to be BIG! But lots of people also believe that they don’t have the capacity to achieve the big things, so they don’t even bother going for the big ones, actually they don’t even bother at all. But think about it this way:

One of your big dreams might have always been to run the Comrades Marathon (86km/56miles) but you are completely unfit, and maybe even overweight. So you always thought to yourself“I can’t do it! So why even bother making it a goal?”Will you be able to just show up if it was tomorrow and go and do it? No! Is that a reason to keep you from doing it and not wanting to make it a goal? No! You might fall down gasping for breath like a fish out of water by the first kilometre if it was tomorrow, but will you ever be able to do it at all? YES!!!! Sounds impossible right? It’s not impossible! You know it’s always been a dream, so now you just have to want it enough to make it a goal and plan your route to get to it.  Diana Scharf Hunt said it perfectly"Goals are dreams with deadlines."

So the next step would be to write a whole bunch of smaller goals under that one big goal that will help you get there. You’d be surprised at how many you will be able to think of. For instance lose 10kg, buy some running shoes first, walk around the block every day for a week, walk FAST around the block every day for a week, jog around the block, etc. Does it seem so impossible now? No, because you know you are achieving the smaller ones, one at a time, to get you to the bigger one! You know how you are going to get there and you have the goals (yes, the GOALS to get you there), and all simply because you wrote it down to have a clear vision of where you are going. See where I am getting to? If you want to run, you are gonna need to put on some running shoes first, and if you want to reach your goals you will need to put down some goals first!

Even if you start with just 3 or 4 goals, eventually you can get to a place where you have thousands of goals. Not all goals are equally big, take equally long or are seemingly impossible to get to. You see, goals can be short, medium or long term and by the same token they can be small, medium or large. There is an old quote by Confucius that says“The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.”In this case it’s not only fitting but very, very true!

So the point is that if you have a vision to be a long distance runner, a president, a singer, a plumber or a fashion consultant, write it down. It doesn’t matter if you think it’s silly or even over the top. If you can think it, YOU CAN DO IT! You don’t have to know how you are going to do it, don’t let that stop you from writing it down – if it’s an aspiration of yours record it.Writing it down is the first step, the first thing that you can do to make it real.The path to achieving it will follow soon enough.

When it’s written down, it has already started manifesting itself into your reality! You’d be surprised at the sudden feeling of accomplishment you will get by simply seeing those words staring back at you. It has become real already. So start dreaming a little bigger, lift you vision higher, whatever situation you are in, whoever and wherever you are, you can change and improve it by having goals. In fact there is nothing, absolutely nothing that can’t be done if you set your mind to it!

If you don’t have a ?option=com_content&view=article&id=90:map4life-5-step-master-action-plan-map&catid=4:resources-a-interesting-links&Itemid=20" Map4Life Diary yet, make your own headings in your journal, and if you don’t have a journal yet it can be any notebook at all, or even just a blank sheet of paper to start to put the different categories of goals down.

A reminder of the categories are:

1. Family and Relationships
2. Intellectual/Emotional life/Thinking
3. Physical Health
4. Financial Wealth
5. Career/Business/Job
6. Social Responsibility
7. Rest & Restoration/Social Life
8. Spiritual

(See articleGoals – It’s time to get discontented!for more detail on them)

Just start writing things down, anything in any category that comes to mind. Any size goal big or small and length of time, i.e. it could be a goal for next week or in twenty or thirty years time. No matter what it is, it’s not silly and it’s not impossible. Just jot it down. You can always add to them later. Jump around as you think of them. Set some time aside and then come back later when you have some more time. The object of this exercise is just to get started and get you excited. If you think of something in between, on your way to work, in the shower even - make a mental note or write it down somewhere else.

There are some rules about how to write down good goals and how to help you achieve every one of the goals you put down, but I will talk about those in future articles. For now, put pen to paper, and get the process started!

Write it down. Written goals have a way of transforming wishes into wants; cant's into cans; dreams into plans; and plans into reality. Don't just think it - ink it! - Author Unknown