You know what most successful people have in common? The answer is simple: goal setting. In these current and ever more chaotic times, carefully setting goals is far more important than aimlessly plowing through busywork. For instance, take a look at Bill Gates. Barely into adulthood he founded Microsoft and now he is the head of a huge software empire and he doesn't even have a university degree! Goal setting is what made him (and all other achievers around the world) a successful person. The ability of planning and setting personal goals really can make the difference between being stuck on a lousy job for life or being able to live your dream.

Of course, not everyone's dream is to own a gigantic software company. There are many other goals; almost as many as there are people. But whichever your own personal goal is, you must have very clear understanding of a key concept: organization. Knowing how to be organized is the basis of successful goal setting.

But being organized is useful not only for goal setting, but also for ensuring that you actually get to accomplish the goals you set for yourself. Planning step by step is a smart way to go. Other important things to have in mind is to be realistic (there is no point in setting extremely hard to achieve goals, because when you actually see that you can't reach that goal you will end up losing confidence in yourself), and you should also keep in mind that achieving your goals will not happen immediately.

A great goal setting idea is to sit down and write down every single goal you may think of. Once you have all of your goals written down on a piece of paper, start eliminating impossible or unrealistic goals (i.e. "buying a boat next month"). Then, take the time to carefully sort the remaining listed goals by difficulty, from easier to harder (for instance, "buying a new car" is somehow easier to achieve than "buying a new house").

The next step is to assign a realistic estimated date of achievement for each of the items on that list. Be careful not to set the deadline too short or you just may end up frustrating yourself, but also beware not to set it too far away in time: that will not be useful at all. After you have written down a deadline for each of your goals, re-sort the list by date, and start doing your best to achieve the first goal in your list. Focus on one goal at a time, and put all your efforts to get the thing done.

Set your goals carefully and there will be virtually nothing that can stop you. Simple but powerful, goal setting is a great tool to improve your life in any way you want, and will help you to be called an achiever. Finding a husband or wife, having your own company, climbing up into a much better position on your current job, getting a new house or even becoming a classic cars collector: any goal can be achieved if you really take goal setting seriously.

Copyright Jared Winston, 2006. All Rights Reserved.