Goal Setting Mistakes People Make for the New Year and How to Avoid Them

Whether your goal is to improve your financial situation, lose ten pounds or travel to a certain destination, it is critical to establish sound strategies when setting goals. In today’s society, the focus is around failure and despair. That is the bad news.

The good news is that we all have within ourselves, the ability to find a way to succeed. The need to understand how to set goals that will promote success has never been more important than today. The proper approaches to setting goals will often times mean the difference between success and failure.

Unfortunately, goal setting will mean the latter for many. Too often people do not set themselves up to succeed because they make five common mistakes. Missed goals are often:

• Too broad- saying you are going to be healthier is too broad
• Not realistic- saying you are going to make $200k when you currently make $25k and no other circumstance has changed
• No timeline- not having a deadline lets you off the hook
• No accountability- people are more likely to follow through on a goal if they tell someone else
• Not measureable- not having a specific amount of weight in mind when setting weight loss as a goal

Those that are successful at achieving their goals are able to avoid many of the common traps with setting goals. As with planting, sowing and harvesting, successful goal setting follows similar laws.

If the goals that you set are to be attainable, they must have a framework and a solid foundation to stabilize them when they are challenged. To set yourself up to succeed:

• Set Specific, measurable and time sensitive goals
• Tell others about your goal. (Scientifically proven to work)
• Understand what roadblocks might come up and how to address.
• Be realistic
• Get a professional coach.

In coaching, clients are challenged, supported and held accountable for what they commit to accomplishing. The belief in coaching is that we all have the answers to our problems and our success inside of ourselves. It is the coach’s role to help the client uncover those answers. iPEC coaches are trained to identify four energy blocks (GAIL) in people that limit their ability to achieve the goals that they establish. The iPEC coach works with the individual to uncover the blocks and successfully work through them so the client can reach their full potential. These blocks consist of:

o Gremlins: “I can’t do it” or “I am not good enough
o Assumptions: Because it happened before it will happen again
o Interpretations : Believing that your view point is the only viewpoint
o Limiting Beliefs: That stuff doesn’t happen to people like me

Let 2009 be the year that you look back with great satisfaction at the goals that you achieved. You avoided the most common mistakes and set yourself up to succeed. Bring on 2010.