A goal can be defined as a result that one is attempting to achieve. Goals can be short-term (results one hopes to achieve within 3 years) or long-term (results one hope to achieve in greater than 3 years from current date).
These goals are usually huge and require consistent effort to bring them to reality. That's where daily goal setting comes in!
For example, a good way to accomplish your yearly goals is to break the year down into 365 days and to do something about the goals EVERY DAY!
The advantages of daily goal setting are numerous. The ultimate one is that IT HELPS YOU GET THINGS DONE!
It helps you accomplish significantly more than you would without it and its results can be noticed within the shortest period.
Specific advantages follow:
1. Renews motivation daily: Zig Ziglar has a beautiful quote:
"people often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily"The sense of a NEW BEGINNING is main push for new year resolutions - but this beginning don't come often enough.
Treating each day as a new beginning means that every day brings forth its own energy. Having this much energy for 365 days is surely a fuel for success.
2. Helps you take action and defeat procrastination: Breaking "huge" goals into tiny daily bits encourages you to put them to action. I mean, while writing a whole book may be intimidating to take on, you'd be more encouraged to write just few pages everyday, and make progress towards bringing you next book to life. These daily actions eliminate procrastination.
As the saying goes "A journey of a thousand miles begin with a footstep". The tiny little "steps" in the form of daily actions will sum up as the thousand mile journey of goal achievement.
3. Helps you prioritise: Since a day can take only a few planned activities, important activities will naturally knock off the less important ones in the process of daily goal setting. Thus helping you to focus on your priorities.
You can easily use this method (modified from 7 habits of highly successful people) of dividing your daily activities into four categories;
A - urgent and important
B - not urgent but important
C - urgent but not important
D - not urgent and not important.
Such that unimportant activities (C and D) get the least attention and time.
4. Helps to build positive habits: As Aristotle rightly said
"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act, but a habit".Daily repetition of actions that contribute to achievement of goals will make them your habit. What's better than making success a habit?
5. Maintains consistency and commitment: Success is a marathon - not a sprint race. Commitment to daily goals will be encouraged if you write them down and follow them through. Daily commitment naturally maintains consistency.
6. Serves as an accountability tool: Daily goals written down and reviewed at the end of each day become a tool for you to hold yourself accountable. You feel a need to complete the task before the day ends. There's also a daily feeling of accomplishment when you complete most of your planned task for the day.
7. Helps focus thoughts on important things: Thoughts play a powerful role in determining what a person would become.
Having an already planned day means that your thoughts will be directed more toward achieving those goals. This reduces and eventually eliminates non-productive thoughts. For example, you will find yourself thinking more about your pending projects than players signing for European football clubs - who football transfer epp?
As you imbibe the habit of daily goal setting, more merits will surely unfold.
To read about how to get started, with daily goal setting, click here.
