Turning Dreams Into Reality

Welcome to 2005! The New Year has arrived, and for most people, this is the most appropriate time of the year to stop and evaluate your goals and objectives for the next 12 months. You enthusiastically look ahead, resolving to make great improvement in all areas of your life. I am going to share some helpful ideas to help you turn your hopes, wishes, and dreams into your future reality. Goals and buildings have several characteristics that are very similar. If a building is engineered properly, and built with structural integrity; when the storms blow, the building stands; when the earth shakes, the building stands. If a building lacks that structural integrity, the storms force is likely to reduce it to rubble. Your goals are the same way. If they are engineered with the proper dynamics in place; when adversity strikes, your goals will stay clear; when the unexpected happens; you will adapt and move closer to your objective. There are Five Characteristics of Effective Goals, that if you follow to a tee, you are guaranteed to come out ahead. Your Goals Must Be: 1. Meaningful to You This may seem obvious, but it is important to evaluate. Is the goal you are setting really important to you? Or is it really more important to your manager, or your company, or your friends or spouse, or are you simply bending to social pressures. For you to achieve a goal in any area of your life, it is vital that you are perfectly clear why that outcome is important to you and why you will be willing to make the sacrifices needed for its accomplishment. 2. Specific and have a Due Date This is the main difference between your dreams and wishes, and your goals. To transform something from a wish to a goal you need to become specific about what you are setting out to accomplish, and make the commitment to complete your task by a certain date. There is a big difference between wishing that you were debt free, and setting the goal to have zero credit card debt by November 1st. For a goal to be specific, it must have a quantifiable number attached to it. A wish is to loose weight; a goal is to loose 15 pounds by May 1st. A wish is to increase your sales; a goal is to increase your sales by 17%. A wish to stop smoking; a goal is to smoke ZERO cigarettes after January 30th. 3. Right Size for You Your goals need to be large enough to cause you to stretch, while being small enough that you really believe in your head and heart that you can accomplish it. When asked, most people describe their goals as needing to be attainable. While that is partially true, if a person simply sets out to achieve