At this point in time you have an opportunity to really analyze your life. Where you are right now and where you want to be in the future. Now is your chance to take a close look at what you would really like to do with your life. Perhaps you have never dared to choose a path based on your true desires, you have purely gone with the flow. This is now your chance.

Before you know how you are going to achieve your goals, you have to know what those goals are. You have to have specific goals. It's no good saying I am going to be rich, you have to define "rich" in a monetary term.

I will earn $250,000 per year.
I will earn $500,000 per year.
When I retire I will be worth $1m.

The same goes if your goal is to run your own business. What business?

I want a new sports car. What make, model and colour will this sports car be?

You have to be specific. If you are not specific you haven't got a clear goal.

Speaking personally I love Jaguar cars. My goal is to have a Jaguar car from each marque within the next 10 years. I set this Goal two years ago. Last year I bought a series 3 XJ6. I wanted a series 3 because it was what I consider to be the last real Jaguar to be built in Coventry. This year I purchased a 5.3 V12 1979 XJS. Again I wanted this specific model because it represented the first of the XJS`s before the HE, when they added chrome and made other various modifications. They are both rust free, low mileage examples with a full service history.

I have used a personal example to demonstrate that you have to be specific. I knew which series I wanted. It had to be rust free. It had to have a full service history. It had to be low mileage.

Whatever you might be planning, bear this in mind:

Whatever you can conceive and believe, you can achieve. There are no limits!

Do you want to achieve your dreams and your goals? And I mean REALLY achieve them?

By the way, if you are reading this thinking 'I just don't know what goals to set', then don't worry. I've got a solution for you.

I want you to really figure out what it is you truly desire. I want you to commit and focus your energy on achieving these goals. Goal setting is good. Even in its simplest form goal setting can help you achieve the things you want from your career and your life. Goal setting can and will free you from your mundane life.

So sit down and write down everything you want from and out of life until the day you die. These are your ultimate goals. Now right down everything you want within the next 10 years. These are your intermediate goals. Now do the same for the next 5 years. These are your shorter term goals. Now do the same for the next year. These are your short term goals.

You will never achieve your ultimate goals as these are just dreams, without setting shorter term goals to make your dreams a reality. This is where so many people go wrong. You have to set goals on a daily, weekly and yearly basis to achieve your long term objectives.

The reason for goal setting is simple. Without goals, you simply drift. People drift into unsatisfactory relationships, unsatisfying and poorly paid jobs and spend their lives looking at successful people, wondering how they do it. On the most basic level, it's possible to set goals just for one day and achieve more than you ever thought possible, in the form of a simple "To Do" list - where you list all of the things you need to get done and cross them off as you achieve them.

Goal setting is a very powerful technique that can improve all areas of your life. The process of setting goals and targets allows you to choose where you want to go in life. By knowing precisely what you want to achieve, you know what you have to concentrate on and improve, and what merely a distraction is. Goal setting gives you long-term vision and short-term motivation. It helps to focus your acquisition of knowledge and helps you to organise your resources.

By setting sharp, clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals. You can see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless grind.

So get into the habit of goal setting. Your long term prospects depend upon it.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Claridge specializes in teaching motivational and self-development skills. In his new e-book "Mindset and Match" he covers amongst other subjects how having the correct mindset can bring you all you want out of life and is available at http://www.mindsetandmatch.com.