Setting Personal Objectives

Also: Failure to Achieve Personal Goals and Objectives

Management by objectives has been a practice amongst many companies and organisations, for 40 years now. This website, though, is not about company or business management. It is about self improvement; self improvement for your own good, and not just for the benefit of an employer. This is about you and helping you. Above all, helping you to help yourself. After all, the person best placed to help you in any problem or endeavour, is you.

Setting personal objectives can be a very useful and effective tool in your self improvement technique armoury. Also, it can be much more fun than a company's management by objective programme. Remember, when it comes to your own self improvement, you are the one who is in charge. Not your boss, or boss's boss. You.

You are interested in self improvement, or you would not be here. If you examine yourself and decide where you want to make improvements, then you can attach objectives to those areas of your self that you wish to improve. Objective setting can be combined effectively with other means of self improvement. And it can be quite powerful.

When setting your own objectives, though, try to be relaxed about it. Use it as a means of bringing balance into your life. There is no need to confine it to business related topics, such as earning more from your home business. Include some fun related objectives, or creative objectives, or family objectives. Enjoy it, rather than set a lot of hard to achieve, serious objectives that will cause you dismay if you do not reach them quickly.

Before you dive into detailed personal objective setting, though, how about sitting back for a while and paint a broad picture of what you really want from life? Once you are clear on that, then you can apply some objectives wherever you like, as an aid in achieving the end you desire. Be honest with yourself, allow yourself to dream, be prepared to rewrite your future. But DO NOT set up potential pressure sources for yourself; you need to relieve pressures, not add your own.

How to find out what you want from life

Whatever age they might be, most people have got to a point in their life when they have to take a big decision, which will probably affect their entire existence. There is no doubt that there are certain moments in life when you may feel helpless, confused and believe you could use a helping hand in order to figure out how to proceed with your life.

Those particular moments are the very moments when it is wise not to rely on anybody else's advice. there are two reasons for this:

1. They may think they know you, and you may think they know you. Nobody, however, can know your true feelings and desires inside well enough to make life changing decisions for you. Such advice would be coloured by their own personality, desires, and experience. When you are deciding about your future, you are the one who must consider and then decide.

2. If they do give advice to you, even with the best intentions, and you rely on that advice, if anything goes wrong you’re always likely to blame them. That is why specialists strongly advise you, every time you find yourself at a crossroads, to always take the decisions by yourself. Obviously, the question arising is: how can we know how to take a decision, and which is the best solution?

The answer is never going to be simple for some of us. However, there is a technique that can be of great help, and employed regularly will have great results: it is called meditation and it has been used for centuries in certain rituals and by ancients civilizations. Even in old and famous books, like the Bible, for example, we are invited to meditate, to discover and fight the evil in us and by knowledge to gain control over our decisions and our lives. I know I have written of meditation elsewhere in this website, but it has myriad uses in just about every part of your life.

How To Meditate

How do you proceed when meditating? First of all, you need to be away from any source of distraction, because you can’t analyze your deepest feelings and thoughts, and watch a movie at the same time. Secondly, you need to ask yourselves a series of questions that will help you to better determine who you really are. The questions should relate to aspects of everyday life:

What made you most proud of yourself during your entire life?

What is it that you always wanted to do and you never found the time? (you can include here anything from learning Egyptology, to going to night classes, or, like I have done, living on a tropical island somewhere far away)

What role does money play in your life?

What is it more important for you, you family life or your career?

How much do you depend on others?

If you are worried about a certain decision, let all the questions be related to that issue. If you’re just confused in general, when asking the questions, think about the common topics that one has to deal with during life. Don’t forget to write down the answers. Try to concentrate and to be sincere; after all, nobody will judge you on this. You don't even have to share any of it if you don't want to. This is your life, your meditative practise, your opportunity to carve your future the way a sculptor would fashion a statue.

All these questions will help you determine exactly where you stand, and what it is that you want form life. All you have to do is to get the right interpretation of your own replies. In order to do that, help yourself to a cup of tea or your favourite beverage and take the time to analyze them thoroughly. Mark with a red pen whatever you find pride worthy answers, and with a black pen the things that don’t make you proud.

Post the list somewhere where you can see it more than once a day, or post it in more than one place. You’ll notice that, step by step, even unwillingly, the black things on your list will start turning red. Don’t forget to renew the list when most of it has turned red! It is the best way to always be aware what your expectations from life are! Good luck!

Next Setting Objectives Page

See Also: Career Objectives