This is our fourth workshop article on goal setting. In this article, we are going to take your previous work and transform your goal into a specific goal with a specific beginning and a specific end. As a result of this workshop article, you will then have the ability to create a road-map to any skill you wish to acquire or position you wish to be in your life.
If you have not yet read the previous three articles on goal setting, please do. It is essential for you to go through and understand the previous three articles to get the most out of this process.
| ·       In the essential guide to goal setting part one: Brain dump and type, we shared how to brain dump everything you wanted to achieve in your life.
·       In the essential guide to goal setting part two: Long term goals, we shared how to prioritise and identify the one goal you must focus on. ·       In the essential guide to goal setting part three: Chunk down, we shared how to take your long term goal and break it down into achievable components. |
In part three of our essential goal setting guide, we shared with you how to chunk down a large goal into smaller achievable and manageable goals. These smaller goals enable us to create an essential component of a large goal or dream – specificity (if that is a word). The smaller goals will dictate the final outcome and how long the final outcome will take, in other words how long it will take to reach your goal.
Transform your goal into a specific goal
Hopefully your research plus the people you network with, will help you obtain the essential information you need to achieve your goal. This research and networking in itself will be a great journey in itself. However, give yourself a maximum timeline to research the steps to achieve a goal. Normally a month is good enough. Once you have as much goal information as you can get, you now need to transform your goal into a specific goal. The table below shows examples of converting general goals to specific goals.
| General | Specific |
| Renovate a house | Make the house saleable by making each room, plus the front and back gardens look like a luxury property within 6 months |
| Lose weight | Lose 6 kilos in 10 months |
| Become a famous singer | Become a folk singer with 300,000 fans within 3 years. |
| Become a wealthy famous singer | Become a folk singer with 300,000 fans within 3 years earning £250,000 per year. |
| Become financially wealthy | Become a millionaire in 12 months |
| Become financially wealthy | Become a millionaire in 12 months in real estate (property). |
Notice in the examples, that we have taken a person’s goal and add two components to the goal. The first component is to make the goal specific and the second component is to give the goal a time scale.
Your mind needs a specific goal
In our first three articles on essential goal setting, we shared with you the conscious logic behind making achievable goals. However, goals are achieved not through logic or the day to day mechanics but through your mind and your mind set.
Your mind set is important in achieving goals because your mind set will take you through the hard parts of the journey. But it is your subconscious mind that does the magic of helping you to achieve a goal. For your subconscious mind to do its magic, you need to be specific.
For example, being wealthy is not specific enough. A wealthy person in a poor country is not the same as a wealthy person in a richer country. Having been privileged to travel and live round the world, I know that £100 in a poor country is enough to feed a family of four for several months. In the UK, where I currently live, £100 at time of writing is only enough to feed a family of four for a week.
So be specific in your goals. Many UK people I coach in financial areas, set one million pounds as their target.
However, one million pounds is not good enough for your mind. There are many ways to make a million pounds. For example you could rob a bank, scam people, or do drugs. However there are negative impacts to making money in those manners such as jail or worse bad people or drug addicts doing horrible things to you. I’ll return to the how to make a million pounds in a specific industry in part five of this series.
Another example we used in the table was to become a famous singer. Again, try to be more specific. A famous folk singer is more specific. A folk singer with 300,000 fans is even better. As you can see, we’ve quantified famous (300,000 fans) and we’ve quantified singer by asking what type of singer.
Note that I quantified famous singer further with an income of £250,000. If you are abundant in finance you may not need the money. However, if you are poor, then it is important for you to write down a financial goal with the job. The financial goal is important for you to have accommodation and food and travel when you are a full time singer.
Action Points
And now dear readers, it’s your turn.
- Take your top three goals and make them specific.
- Eliminate all the fluff words. Fluff words like wealthy, free, famous and so on. Be specific. If you are famous what is the minimum number of fans you want. If you are wealthy what is the minimum amount of money you want. If you want to lose weight what is the minimum amount of weight you are going to lose.
- Now put an end date at the end of each of your goals.
Finally as we transition from the conscious part of goal setting to the subconscious part, think about what you will do to maintain the specific goal. In other words how to maintain the income, the weight, the success…..you didn’t think your goal stopped once you hit it did you?
In our next workbook article on essential goal setting, we will examine the time scale you put to achieve your goal and test how realistic that time scale is.
Until then live long and prosper, oh and don’t be lazy! Leave us a comment in the section below. We love to hear the tips and insights from our readers.
In the goal setting series so far:-
- Essential Guide to Goal Setting 1: Brain Dump and goal types
- Essential Guide to Goal Setting 2: Long term goals
- Essential Guide to Goal Setting 3: Chunking down
- Five techniques to stay focussed
Other articles readers have enjoyed
- Never Give Up – A short story from my property journey
- Nine reasons why losing my job was awesome
- Why being busy is a waste of time
- How to create your perfect to do list
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