Feeling adrift? Write down your goals

Have you ever felt like you're not getting everything you want out of life or out of your business as the company owner?

Dreams are a foundation for what life is about, personally and professionally. And everyone has dreams.

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Yet, many people wonder how they can ever realize their dreams, or they give them up when they experience roadblocks or rocky patches along the way.

Oftentimes, day-to-day financial issues seem to take priority over long-term dreams for a better life or a better business.

So how can you manage all these day-to-day challenges and at the same time keep your dreams alive? How can dreams become reality?

The value of setting and writing down goals to achieve your personal or professional dreams cannot be overemphasized.

As Lou Holtz said, "Most people fail because they fail to understand what they are trying to do."

Goals start as a dreams, but with planning, determination, communication and focus, they can become reality.

Goal-setting is the most widely endorsed personal development tool in the world today. And it has been proven that success has more to do with goal choices than abilities.

A study conducted a few years ago of three groups of Harvard graduates showed that those who wrote down their goals were the most successful at achieving them. Those who mentally noted their goals were moderately successful. Those who did neither were the least successful.

The key to getting what you want out of life is understanding yourself and then carefully setting some goals, and writing them down.

Some of the reasons people don't have clearly defined and written goals are:

•  Fear of moving outside the comfort zone. Fear is the line of least resistance.

•  Poor self-image, or the inability to imagine being successful. Visualization is critical to the successful achievement of goals. (Note the use of before-and-after photos as motivation for diet programs.)

•  Skepticism or a failure to buy in to goal-setting.

•  An unwillingness to put in the time and effort to achieve defined results.

n Lack of knowledge about goal-setting.

So how do you set goals? It will require some time to complete this exercise:

1. Clearly describe the results (goals) of what you want that you can control and write them down. Fanta-sizing about results over which you have no control is not a real goal.)

2. Define why these results are important to you. Be absolutely certain that you want to achieve those goals and be solution-conscious rather than problem-conscious.

3. List the likely obstacles that you will have to overcome to achieve the results and identify where you can get help.

4. List the realistic capabilities, strategies and knowledge you will need to achieve these results. (Willpower is unreliable on its own and is based on emotions. Continuing effort will be needed to achieve your goals long after the initial emotional high of setting the goal has worn off.)

5. Write a specific, measurable action plan, defining each step to achieve the results. The goals need to be expressed in terms of specific events.

6. Create accountability by specifying the date to achieve the results.

It will take between 10 and 30 hours to set annual personal goals or annual goals for a small- to medium-size business.

However, once the goals have been properly set, it will actually create an additional three to 10 hours a week for the person or business owner to work on other activities.

Why clutter your mind or use your resources with what you don't want? Being specific and committed about what you want to achieve through your goals and the clear direction of your efforts will create more time for your personal and business life.