A Guide To Personal Goal Setting

By Author: Tina Turbin
Total Articles: 4762
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Women often approach me with the question of how I've been able to enjoy so much success in my professional life as a children's author and researcher (http://TinaTurbin.com) as well as in my personal life as a mother and wife. I really have been blessed with a rewarding career, the opportunity to help people in my humanitarian efforts, three beautiful, grown children, and a loving marriage. I attribute my enriched life to my personal goal setting, a fundamental activity which is the basis of everything I do.

Goal setting is the bridge between your vision of your ideal future and actually living your ideal future. When you set goals right, you are actually taking the first step in turning your vision into a reality, motivating you and allowing you to take the practical steps in your life necessary to achieve your dreams. Goal setting techniques are used by top-level athletes, successful businessmen, and high achievers in all fields, giving them short-term motivation and long-term vision. With goal setting, your dreams are attainable.

I have found setting goals to be an especially useful tool since my children left ...
... the house, leaving me with a lot more time to reconnect with and realize my dreams of being a children's author and helping others. It is not unusual once your children are fairly self-sufficient to need to reevaluate your purposes in life, define your goals, and pursue them with your newfound available time. Whether your children are grown, your children are still young, or you don't have any children at all, it is vital to establish your goals.

So, where do you want to go in life? Get a precise "big picture" of what you want to do in all of the fields of your life. These "big picture" goals should embrace various areas, such as artistic, education, career, spiritual, family, financial, physical, community service, and friendship goals. If you're anything like me or the average woman, you probably have many different facets of life that are important to you -- your marriage, your children, your career, and wellness or faith, for example. Make sure to write your grand vision down and all of the more detailed goals your vision encompasses.

By setting sharp, clearly-defined goals, you can measure your progress and celebrate the achievement of your goals, raising your self-confidence and your ability to achieve further goals. Your smaller goals should include dates and amounts where applicable so you can measure your achievement. Keep them realistic and attainable so you can reap the rewards of having attained what you want. Determine which goals have priority so you don't feel overwhelmed by everything you've set out to do. Lastly, don't let anyone but yourself determine what your goals are, and the sky is the limit in what you can dream.

One of my personal goals is to help raise awareness for celiac disease, an autoimmune disease caused by an allergic reaction to gluten, a protein found in barley, wheat, and rye, a disease I was diagnosed with many years ago and have been successfully treating with a gluten-free diet. But how exactly can I do this? Some of my more specific goals are to donate some of the proceeds of projects from my children's series, Danny the Dragon, create a petition for government funds to support research efforts, and to keep a gluten-free blog to help the celiac community with valuable information. This is an example of how a larger, general goal can be broken down into smaller, precise goals.

Writing your goals down on paper (or on your computer in this computer age) is essential. A recent study was conducted recently to find what made Harvard's most successful graduates so successful. It turns out that the common denominator among these prosperous alumni was writing down their goals. Luckily, you don't need a degree from Harvard to do that.

In no time you'll soon see your life begin to take on the form of your imagined vision of the future. You'll also feel more motivated and excited about life because you'll see yourself on the way to achieving what you want to, casting aside the distractions of life that have nothing to do with your true goals. You may see that the television shows you watch don't have much to do with your personal goals, and so you'll reduce your time spent watching TV, for example. In the end, you'll be able to enjoy an enriched life yourself.
About Author:
Tina Turbin (http://TinaTurbin.com) is a children's published author, writer, researcher, humanitarian and mom. Working for many years with children in the Entertainment Business and raising three talented and successful children with her husband, Tina has always been an advocate for families, women's issues, children, literacy, education, celiac disease, health and nutrition as a way to improve the quality of lives and health for others.