Goal Setting

Goal Setting: Realistic vs. Unrealistic Goals

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Whether it’s in your personal life, social life, or professional life, the chances are you have experience with setting yourself a goal.

It might have been to lose 100 lbs by running 5 times per week, complete a challenging fitness event, or be awarded that job promotion. But whatever your goal was, there’s a good chance you didn’t achieve it first time. If you did, then perhaps the goal wasn’t big enough to begin with.

While there are many people who will encourage you to set smaller, more achievable goals, there are yet more people who will tell you that your goals are simply unattainable.

It won’t necessarily be your friends, co-workers, or family that put down your goals. But sooner or later, if the goal is big enough, then you will start to hear the negative comments creeping in about how you need to set more realistic goals, or that you should try working towards something else instead.

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Realistic vs. unrealistic goal setting

The fact is that in many cases we actually need to set an unrealistic goal. But this raises a question in itself: How do you classify a goal as realistic or unrealistic?

Is it based on the judgement received from other people that you might not be good enough? Or is it the doubt creeping into your own head that you might not have what it takes to follow what it takes to make that goal and dream a reality?

Every year new records are being broken, new industries created, and new career paths being formed that have never existed before.

But you have to ask yourself, who are the people making these achievements possible? Have they ever failed?

The answer, without any exception, is yes.

Don't be afraid to set seemingly impossible long term goals

Now in many cases their attempts have simply failed to fulfil the goal they set in their mind, and shouldn’t be classed as a simple failure.

The only thing holding many people back from achieving their life goals is the level of failure and trial and error they are prepared to go through before achieving what it is they want in life.

Ask yourself the following:

There are literally thousands of times throughout history where people have been proven wrong, many of which have led to the greatest discoveries and the creation of the largest multi-billion dollar companies you see today.

Also, many of these people didn’t have the support networks that are in place today.

With the creation of social media networks, viral content, angel investors, crowd funding campaigns, and venture capitalists, no matter how big your dream, there are now ways to turn it into a reality.

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Top 5 resources for helping you achieve your goals

One final takeaway we want to offer you is a list of our top 5 resources for giving yourself a boost in motivation and self belief.

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    1. Social networks – From Twitter accounts to Pinterest boards, there’s no end of motivational quotes now available online
    2. Audio books – Sites such as Audible.com have made it much more convenient to listen to your favourite books, by motivational speakers and life coaches including Anthony Robbins, Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich), and Timothy Ferriss (The 4-Hour Workweek)
    3. Motivational seminars – Seminars give you a high level of exposure to a topic through presentations and discussions led by multiple experts.They can also be a great place to meet like-minded people who share your passions and help develop any potential ideas you might have.

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[one_half_last]Social networking has made it much easier to network with influencers in your industry who can help you achieve your goals[/one_half_last]

  1. YouTube – If someone achieves something incredible, in many cases they will want to record it happening
  2. Google – Search engines are great places to start when it comes to finding everything from business advice to forums where like-minded people can discuss ways to help you achieve your goal.It doesn’t have to be record breaking, and there may be people out there who have been through what you’re going through and can over advice. Either in the form of paid mentorship or a simple exchange of messages.

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