Turning your dreams into reality: goal planning

If you have taken the first step and have created your vision for the future and have stated your goals for the next ten to twenty years then you are half way there. However, this is just one step forwards. To really make your vision a reality you need to develop an understanding of what the steps are to keep moving you in the right direction.

Ultimately you need a thorough plan that will take your written goals and make them real. This exercise will guide you through the planning process to enable you to kickstart your new dream life.

There are five key processes to goal planning. The first of which is outlined below:

understanding: what result are you trying to achieve?

Hopefully you have a list of goals that you are committed to achieving. If so, then at this stage of the planning process it is time to dig a little deeper into each of these goals.

Thinking about one goal at a time, consider this question: what result are you trying to achieve? What specific, measurable result will be the outcome of you completing this goal? The important distinction at this stage is the difference between outcomes from actions. You want to focus on the outcome! For instance while your outcome might be to become a professional investor, so focus on the outcome which might be:

‘To turn my career into something that I love and something that allows me to spend more time with my family and friends within the next 12-months’

Whereas the danger might be to focus on adding an action to your to-do list straight away, which might be:

‘To invest my spare income in stocks and shares’

Is the desired outcome to invest your spare money? No. Is your outcome to play the stock-market? No. The desired outcome is to spend your time doing something you love whist being able to spend more time with your family and friends. What you really want the outcome to be is for you to become a skilled, professional investor.

An even more pertinent result (often used by Tony Robbins) is that of losing weight. He suggests that someone, who decides that they need to shed the excess weight they have and so adds a ten-mile run to their to-do list. After two miles they are tired and in pain and so give up, thinking that exercise is not their thing. But was the outcome to run ten miles? No! The outcome was to lose weight.

By focusing on an action at this stage instead of an outcome you run the risk of cutting off all of the other opportunities and ways in which the desired outcome could be achieved. There are a million ways to becoming a professional investor or to lose weight – so for now, simply focus on the result you want rather than the specific action.