The Unification Epicenter of True Lightworkers
5.5 Goal Development
How do you actually do it?
It’s now time to look specifically at the goal you’ve written down from Section 5.2 above. Firstly, you need to properly define this goal.
Read through the ‘goal’ as you’ve written it down. Is this goal specific? Is it a clear statement of what you want to achieve? Does it steer you towards something you really want? Is it too broad, in which case break it down into more manageable chunks and focus on one of these chunks for the time being.
Your next step is to re-write this ‘goal’ into something specific to give you clarity, direction, motivation and focus towards what you want. So on the same piece of paper, write the following (and complete!):
My goal is to …….. This goal is required for the ……………….. aspect of my life, in order for me to achieve my ‘big-picture’ ambition of ………………………………………………………………….
Next, ask yourself “why”, and write this underneath. How will achieving this goal benefit you?
I want to achieve this goal because …………………………………………………………………….
Remember, goals must be personal and meaningful, otherwise you’ll have no reason to achieve them. In other words, the “Why” is more important than the “What”. It’s important for you to put the “Why” in writing to reinforce the benefits of achieving this goal.
Read through these statements again – are they realistic? Are they what you really want? Are they ethical, exciting and enjoyable?
Now that we’ve got your goal definition and motivation out of the way, we can look at how to achieve it. This will take some development and the best way to do it is Mind map it! Put your goal in the center of the page and go from there. Radiating out from this central goal statement, generate ideas and thoughts on:
Your current position in relation to this goal – are you nearly there, or not even in the ball-park? What obstacles are there to you achieving this goal? This is a bit like a Mini-SWOT analysis of this particular goal, and also sets the ‘starting’ point for future measurement of progress against the goal.
Your measurement scale for the goal – is progress easy to measure (eg weight loss) or do you need to develop a ranking system? There is more on this later.
What do you need to achieve this goal – time, money, support, more information, other resources? What sacrifices do you need to make in order to achieve this goal and what level of effort do you need to apply? Is this level of effort sustainable in the short | medium | long term? Some short term ‘pain’ for long term ‘gain’ is probably worth it!
Who makes up your support group for this goal – family and friends? Official support group or organization? Do you have a personal mentor? Identify sources of support and their role in your goal setting journey whether it be advice, someone to lean on or bounce ideas off, or someone to help with maintaining motivation.
What steps are needed to achieve this goal – this will form the basis of your action plan and mini goals. Research the topic and break it down into logical and identifiable steps. This will be easy for some goals such as weight-loss, but other outcome-based goals may be harder to define.
How long will each step take? Deadline for each step?
As you jot down all your thoughts, you will see some common threads – connect these with lines and arrows (use colour so it’s easy to follow). You may want to reflect back on some of the previous activities, in particular the ones from Chapters 3 and 4. Do these trigger anything to add to your Mind Map or research further?
This is the ‘working’ part of goal development, with the key being good research on what it takes to achieve your goal – the more you know and understand your goal, the more comfortable you’ll feel undertaking it, so make sure you put the effort into effective goal development.
During this research based stage it’s important not to get side-tracked, particularly if you’re using the Internet as your main research tool. It is very easy to start taking detours and ‘scenic’ routes to your destination, so make sure you regularly read your goal statement and keep this in the forefront of your mind while you are researching your goal – don’t be tempted to start following a different route now! Remember that the goal you’ve set is based on your understanding of yourself and your real needs and wants, and is therefore what you need to be developing.
More on Goal Measurement
Some goals are easy to measure – weight-loss, fitness (as time to run a distance, weight lifted/ reps, etc), number of cigarettes smoked per day, etc), but others are not. Goals based on improving the ‘quality’ of your life such as improved relationships with your kids, are difficult to quantify so you’ll need to develop your own measurement system so you are able to measure progress against your goal.
Options for measuring these non-quantifiable goals include:
Relate goal progress to a measurable unit – the easy one here is ‘time’. You may be able to measure your goal base on say the number of hours per week you spend on the goal. For example, a goal focused on improving family relationships may be measured by the amount of quality time per day you spend with the kids.
Rating or ranking system based on your assessment or ‘feeling’ of goal progress – you may be able to establish a ranking system based on how you actually feel regarding the goal, with say a ranking of 5 being ‘very happy/ satisfied’ and 1 being ‘very unhappy/ dissatisfied’. You may even be able to make these more specific to your goal, for example a ranking of 5 being ‘I feel extremely energetic and healthy’ and 1 being ‘I feel very lethargic and depressed’, for a health related goal.
However you chose to measure your goal, it needs to be a realistic measurement and it needs to be something that you personally see as a measure of progress – for example, you may prefer to measure progress on our example of family relationships by a defined ranking system (based on ‘feeling’) rather than time spent per day with the kids, recognizing that time with the kids can only improve relationships if it is quality time.
Don’t worry if you’re not totally sure how you intend to measure goals like this – to some extent, the measurement system can be refined as you progress towards your goal outcome and as you become more aware of the measurable benefits. Just don’t change the measurement system for the sake of showing progress if there really hasn’t been anyway.
Putting it all together
Congratulations! You now have a fully developed goal and all the information you need to put it into action. All you have to do now is document the goal in an easy to follow format – ie, SMARTER goals! From the goal development page, you’ll see that you have more or less covered all the SMARTER aspects of the goal….
S Specific You wrote down your ‘specific’ goal when you completed the sentence “My
goal is to …….. “. By linking this to a life aspect and a Big-Picture statement,
you also made this goal give you direction, motivation and focus towards what
you really want.
M Measurable You identified a measurement system for your goal as part of your Mind Map.
As well as noting HOW you are going to measure your goal (whether it be a
real unit of measurement or a ranking type system), also note your ‘starting’
measurement.
A Action-oriented As part of your Mind Map you identified the steps required to complete your
goal – these are the actions that will form the basis of your personal goal
Action Plan in the next chapter.
R Reasoned and You wrote down your ‘reason’ goal when you completed the sentence “I want
realistic to achieve this goal because …….. “. This statement will be the on-going
motivation to drive you to achieve this goal. You’ve also read through your
goal statement and asked yourself whether or not it is realistic.
T Time-bound As you identified the steps required to complete your goal, you also identified
how long it will take to complete each step and possibly set yourself a
deadline.
E Ethical, Exciting Have you asked yourself these questions relating to your goal? and Enjoyable
R Resourced On your Mind Map you have identified the resources (time, money, support,
information, etc) needed for you to achieve your goal. Make sure you include any sacrifices you have to make in here too.
…so it is now time to transfer this onto a SMARTER goal list!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Activity 5.2…
Go ahead and fully develop your goal, using the Mind Mapping process.
Make sure you consider:
Your current position in relation to this goal Your proposed goal measurement system
What you need to achieve this goal and what sacrifices you need to make
Who makes up your support group for this goal and their roles
What steps are needed to achieve this goal, including estimated timeframes and deadlines
Once you’ve got it all down, stand back and take a look. What’s missing? What are the recurring ideas? Where are the connections between goal activities?
Once you’re happy with the Mind Map, select one of the SMARTER Goal templates and document your goal, making sure you address all the SMARTER elements of the goal.
When you’ve finished, read it through – this is the crux of the goal setting process and if you don’t believe what you’ve written, well now is the time to go back and look at why. You need to commit to what you have written on the SMARTER Goal template, so ask yourself:
Am I really committed to undertaking the actions I have prepared?
Am I really committed to achieving the action items within the timeframe I have set? Am I convinced that this is what I really want?
Am I excited about the outcome from this goal?
Am I prepared to allocate the resources and make the sacrifices I have identified? Am I actually going to do it?
If you answered “YES” to all of these questions, great! Continue to the next chapter. If you aren’t sure or had some “No’s” in there, then you need to go back and look at ‘why’ - there is no point continuing if the goal you’ve developed and documented has a flaw in it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 5 Review:
Go back to the Chapter Outcomes at the start of this chapter. Have you achieved all of these outcomes? You should now have a fully developed SMARTER Goal that is:
Specific and well-defined, giving you a clear direction towards what you want.
Measurable, either by standard units of measurements or a ranking type system. Action-orientated, with a set of clear step-by-step actions.
Reasoned, relevant and meaningful to you. Realistic.
Time-bound, with step-by-step actions having a set timeframe or deadline. Ethical, exciting and enjoyable.
Resourced.
Keep the completed SMARTER Goal template somewhere prominent – next to all the other important outputs from this workbook would be ideal. This is the pinnacle of what you’ve been working towards and should be referred to regularly to ensure you are mentally on track and in tune with all elements of the goal.
Remember that goal-setting is a progressive process with each stage of the process being based on the outcomes from the previous stage, so the end result will only be as good as the early preparation stages.
So make sure you’re truly comfortable with all aspects of your SMARTER Goal – in the next Chapter we’re going to turn this goal into an action plan, which is like your personal set of step-by-step directions to achieving your goal.
It’s now time to look specifically at the goal you’ve written down from Section 5.2 above. Firstly, you need to properly define this goal.
Read through the ‘goal’ as you’ve written it down. Is this goal specific? Is it a clear statement of what you want to achieve? Does it steer you towards something you really want? Is it too broad, in which case break it down into more manageable chunks and focus on one of these chunks for the time being.
Your next step is to re-write this ‘goal’ into something specific to give you clarity, direction, motivation and focus towards what you want. So on the same piece of paper, write the following (and complete!):
My goal is to …….. This goal is required for the ……………….. aspect of my life, in order for me to achieve my ‘big-picture’ ambition of ………………………………………………………………….
Next, ask yourself “why”, and write this underneath. How will achieving this goal benefit you?
I want to achieve this goal because …………………………………………………………………….
Remember, goals must be personal and meaningful, otherwise you’ll have no reason to achieve them. In other words, the “Why” is more important than the “What”. It’s important for you to put the “Why” in writing to reinforce the benefits of achieving this goal.
Read through these statements again – are they realistic? Are they what you really want? Are they ethical, exciting and enjoyable?
Now that we’ve got your goal definition and motivation out of the way, we can look at how to achieve it. This will take some development and the best way to do it is Mind map it! Put your goal in the center of the page and go from there. Radiating out from this central goal statement, generate ideas and thoughts on:
Your current position in relation to this goal – are you nearly there, or not even in the ball-park? What obstacles are there to you achieving this goal? This is a bit like a Mini-SWOT analysis of this particular goal, and also sets the ‘starting’ point for future measurement of progress against the goal.
Your measurement scale for the goal – is progress easy to measure (eg weight loss) or do you need to develop a ranking system? There is more on this later.
What do you need to achieve this goal – time, money, support, more information, other resources? What sacrifices do you need to make in order to achieve this goal and what level of effort do you need to apply? Is this level of effort sustainable in the short | medium | long term? Some short term ‘pain’ for long term ‘gain’ is probably worth it!
Who makes up your support group for this goal – family and friends? Official support group or organization? Do you have a personal mentor? Identify sources of support and their role in your goal setting journey whether it be advice, someone to lean on or bounce ideas off, or someone to help with maintaining motivation.
What steps are needed to achieve this goal – this will form the basis of your action plan and mini goals. Research the topic and break it down into logical and identifiable steps. This will be easy for some goals such as weight-loss, but other outcome-based goals may be harder to define.
How long will each step take? Deadline for each step?
As you jot down all your thoughts, you will see some common threads – connect these with lines and arrows (use colour so it’s easy to follow). You may want to reflect back on some of the previous activities, in particular the ones from Chapters 3 and 4. Do these trigger anything to add to your Mind Map or research further?
This is the ‘working’ part of goal development, with the key being good research on what it takes to achieve your goal – the more you know and understand your goal, the more comfortable you’ll feel undertaking it, so make sure you put the effort into effective goal development.
During this research based stage it’s important not to get side-tracked, particularly if you’re using the Internet as your main research tool. It is very easy to start taking detours and ‘scenic’ routes to your destination, so make sure you regularly read your goal statement and keep this in the forefront of your mind while you are researching your goal – don’t be tempted to start following a different route now! Remember that the goal you’ve set is based on your understanding of yourself and your real needs and wants, and is therefore what you need to be developing.
More on Goal Measurement
Some goals are easy to measure – weight-loss, fitness (as time to run a distance, weight lifted/ reps, etc), number of cigarettes smoked per day, etc), but others are not. Goals based on improving the ‘quality’ of your life such as improved relationships with your kids, are difficult to quantify so you’ll need to develop your own measurement system so you are able to measure progress against your goal.
Options for measuring these non-quantifiable goals include:
Relate goal progress to a measurable unit – the easy one here is ‘time’. You may be able to measure your goal base on say the number of hours per week you spend on the goal. For example, a goal focused on improving family relationships may be measured by the amount of quality time per day you spend with the kids.
Rating or ranking system based on your assessment or ‘feeling’ of goal progress – you may be able to establish a ranking system based on how you actually feel regarding the goal, with say a ranking of 5 being ‘very happy/ satisfied’ and 1 being ‘very unhappy/ dissatisfied’. You may even be able to make these more specific to your goal, for example a ranking of 5 being ‘I feel extremely energetic and healthy’ and 1 being ‘I feel very lethargic and depressed’, for a health related goal.
However you chose to measure your goal, it needs to be a realistic measurement and it needs to be something that you personally see as a measure of progress – for example, you may prefer to measure progress on our example of family relationships by a defined ranking system (based on ‘feeling’) rather than time spent per day with the kids, recognizing that time with the kids can only improve relationships if it is quality time.
Don’t worry if you’re not totally sure how you intend to measure goals like this – to some extent, the measurement system can be refined as you progress towards your goal outcome and as you become more aware of the measurable benefits. Just don’t change the measurement system for the sake of showing progress if there really hasn’t been anyway.
Putting it all together
Congratulations! You now have a fully developed goal and all the information you need to put it into action. All you have to do now is document the goal in an easy to follow format – ie, SMARTER goals! From the goal development page, you’ll see that you have more or less covered all the SMARTER aspects of the goal….
S Specific You wrote down your ‘specific’ goal when you completed the sentence “My
goal is to …….. “. By linking this to a life aspect and a Big-Picture statement,
you also made this goal give you direction, motivation and focus towards what
you really want.
M Measurable You identified a measurement system for your goal as part of your Mind Map.
As well as noting HOW you are going to measure your goal (whether it be a
real unit of measurement or a ranking type system), also note your ‘starting’
measurement.
A Action-oriented As part of your Mind Map you identified the steps required to complete your
goal – these are the actions that will form the basis of your personal goal
Action Plan in the next chapter.
R Reasoned and You wrote down your ‘reason’ goal when you completed the sentence “I want
realistic to achieve this goal because …….. “. This statement will be the on-going
motivation to drive you to achieve this goal. You’ve also read through your
goal statement and asked yourself whether or not it is realistic.
T Time-bound As you identified the steps required to complete your goal, you also identified
how long it will take to complete each step and possibly set yourself a
deadline.
E Ethical, Exciting Have you asked yourself these questions relating to your goal? and Enjoyable
R Resourced On your Mind Map you have identified the resources (time, money, support,
information, etc) needed for you to achieve your goal. Make sure you include any sacrifices you have to make in here too.
…so it is now time to transfer this onto a SMARTER goal list!
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Activity 5.2…
Go ahead and fully develop your goal, using the Mind Mapping process.
Make sure you consider:
Your current position in relation to this goal Your proposed goal measurement system
What you need to achieve this goal and what sacrifices you need to make
Who makes up your support group for this goal and their roles
What steps are needed to achieve this goal, including estimated timeframes and deadlines
Once you’ve got it all down, stand back and take a look. What’s missing? What are the recurring ideas? Where are the connections between goal activities?
Once you’re happy with the Mind Map, select one of the SMARTER Goal templates and document your goal, making sure you address all the SMARTER elements of the goal.
When you’ve finished, read it through – this is the crux of the goal setting process and if you don’t believe what you’ve written, well now is the time to go back and look at why. You need to commit to what you have written on the SMARTER Goal template, so ask yourself:
Am I really committed to undertaking the actions I have prepared?
Am I really committed to achieving the action items within the timeframe I have set? Am I convinced that this is what I really want?
Am I excited about the outcome from this goal?
Am I prepared to allocate the resources and make the sacrifices I have identified? Am I actually going to do it?
If you answered “YES” to all of these questions, great! Continue to the next chapter. If you aren’t sure or had some “No’s” in there, then you need to go back and look at ‘why’ - there is no point continuing if the goal you’ve developed and documented has a flaw in it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 5 Review:
Go back to the Chapter Outcomes at the start of this chapter. Have you achieved all of these outcomes? You should now have a fully developed SMARTER Goal that is:
Specific and well-defined, giving you a clear direction towards what you want.
Measurable, either by standard units of measurements or a ranking type system. Action-orientated, with a set of clear step-by-step actions.
Reasoned, relevant and meaningful to you. Realistic.
Time-bound, with step-by-step actions having a set timeframe or deadline. Ethical, exciting and enjoyable.
Resourced.
Keep the completed SMARTER Goal template somewhere prominent – next to all the other important outputs from this workbook would be ideal. This is the pinnacle of what you’ve been working towards and should be referred to regularly to ensure you are mentally on track and in tune with all elements of the goal.
Remember that goal-setting is a progressive process with each stage of the process being based on the outcomes from the previous stage, so the end result will only be as good as the early preparation stages.
So make sure you’re truly comfortable with all aspects of your SMARTER Goal – in the next Chapter we’re going to turn this goal into an action plan, which is like your personal set of step-by-step directions to achieving your goal.
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