The importance of effective goal setting cannot be overstated in our personal journey towards success. This is why there are countless articles out there on how to set your own SMART goals and even why it is a skill that is often taught to a small extent in the classroom. Understanding the Reasons Why Setting Goals Is Important can be a determining factor in whether we really accept the importance of goal setting. The more willing we are to apply this approach, the more likely we are to achieve our personal definitions of personal and professional success.
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Goals Allow You To Measure Progress
By setting goals for yourself you are able to measure your progress because you always have a fixed endpoint or benchmark to compare with. Take this scenario for example David makes a goal to write a book with a minimum of 300 pages. He starts writing every day and works really hard but along the way, he loses track of how many more pages he has written and how much more he needs to write. So rather than panicking David simply counts the number of pages he has already written and he instantly determines his progress and knows how much further he needs to go.
Goals Encourage You to Take Action
This builds on the last benefit of goal setting. Not only does effective goal setting help you break down your larger goals into smaller, more manageable ones, but it also encourages you to actually begin taking action on those goals. After all, a plan is completely worthless if you aren’t willing to invest the effort required to execute it. Reasons Why Setting Goals Is Important!
Setting your goals and putting your plan in place motivates you to begin taking action towards achieving them. These goals give you something to plan and work towards. Essentially, they help propel you forward.
They Help You Beat Procrastination
Procrastination is something we all battle from time to time, myself included. However, when you set goals in life, specific goals for what you want to achieve, it helps you understand that procrastination is dangerous.
It is wasted time. It is another day you aren’t moving closer to that goal.
Consider this quote from Pablo Picasso next time you are thinking of putting off that next step towards your goal and rethink your stance: “Only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone.”
Goals Give You Motivation
The root of all the motivation or inspiration you have ever felt in your entire life are goals. Goal setting provides you the foundation for your drive. By making a goal you give yourself a concrete endpoint to aim for and get excited about. It gives you something to focus on and put 100% of your effort into and this focus is what develops motivation. Goals are simply tools to focus your energy in positive directions, these can be changed as your priorities change, new ones added, and others dropped.
Setting Motivates Individuals
Research tells us that goal setting is important on both an individual and a group basis. Locke and Latham have also shown us that there is an important relationship between goals and performance.
Locke and Latham’s research supports the idea that the most effective performance seems to be the result of goals being both specific and challenging. When goals are used to evaluate performance and linked to feedback on results, they create a sense of commitment and acceptance.
The researchers also found that the motivational impact of goals may be affected by ability and self-efficacy, or one’s belief that one can achieve something. It was also found that deadlines helped improve the effectiveness of a goal and a learning goal orientation leads to higher performance when compared to a performance goal orientation.
Goals help you to get a better life
Setting goals moves you closer to your dream life. If you already know the purpose of your life goals will help you to get closer to that purpose and when you achieve that dream and purpose your life automatically becomes best.
But always remember In order to achieve what you want always stick to your goals; you should change your plans if it doesn’t work but never change your goals.
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