Five Goal Setting Mistakes to Avoid

As competition for jobs heats up, many people are finding themselves with a serious need to develop themselves in order to have the best position possible for career advancement. Personal development is important in many more settings, and one popular avenue to use in self-development exercises is to set goals for oneself. Setting goals is a great idea, and in many cases it is a fruitful exercise, as long as a few basic guidelines are followed. When engaging in goal setting, there are also a few basic mistakes that are important to avoid.

First, a major mistake is to make the goals too vague. "I want to save more money" is better replaced with "I will save ten percent of my take-home pay." Vague goals often lead to lackluster implementation and no clear way to know if the goal was ever achieved!

Second, some goals that people set are clearly unachievable, or impossible to attain. This also does nothing good for the goal-setter. Both of these goal setting mistakes are likely to lead to frustration with the entire idea of setting goals, which makes a person less likely to engage in helpful goal setting in the future.

Third, some goals are simply irrelevant. While some ideas are great for some people, if they don't have anything to do with the life or career path of another person, they won't make a good goal for the second person. For example, a businessman without children who sets out to improve education in the local private school might have a tough
uphill climb, while an education goal is a natural choice for a teacher or educator.

Fourth, some goals which are set don't have any time frames for implementation. In these cases, the goals seem to languish about for months, years, or even a lifetime, and the goal setting exercise ends up being completely useless. A timeline gives specific accountability and a specific way to measure whether the goal will, in fact, be met.

Accordingly, the fifth major goal mistake is making goals that aren't measurable. With an immeasurable goal, it's difficult to know if the goal is being achieved. Measurable goals, with a specific timeline for implementation, make it possible to review progress and adjust if the goal won't be met as desired.

Rick enjoys writing articles on a wide variety of topics and interests. So come visit his latest website that discusses heart rate monitoring products such as heart rate monitor watches and nike heart rate monitor that can aid in maximizing athletic performance.