One thing people are excited about New Year is that it signifies new beginning. For some, it’s about New Year’s  resolutions, list of things to change or a time to update the bucket list. I am a believer of goal setting. Setting a yearly goal gives a road mad towards the dream. For example, if my dream is to have 10 million retirement fund, my goal for this year could be to save 500 thousand by the end of the year. This will make me a little bit closer to my big dream. If you want to a little help on how to set goals, I have three points for you.

SET BIG GOALS

They say shoot for the moon, even if you miss you’ll land among the stars. That’s true and the same with setting goals. We should aim for big goals. It must be big enough that you’ll be the happiest person if you accomplish the goal by the end of the year. What’s the use of a goal if it doesn’t excite you? If it’s too easy, chances are you will not work on it. The goal should get you inspired to wake up every morning and do something about it every single day. It must activate your faith and makes you work hard.

SET REALISTIC ACTION PLAN

Let’s talk about reality, shall we? After setting idealistic big goals, we should sit down and think about the actual steps we can do about it. Here’s my example. One of my dream is to run a marathon. My goal for this year is to be “fit enough to run half a marathon”. I do my research and found out that this means I should be able to run 3 to 4 times a week at least 5 kilometers per run. That must be a a realistic plan right? To some yes, but to me nope! For someone who hasn’t run for a year now, this will just create frustration. The realistic plan would be to get to running again at least 3 times a week for half an hour per run. From there, I can modify the action plan as my stamina builds up and eventually reached the goal.

HAVE AN ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER OR SYSTEM

Evaluation. To see goals come into reality, we should learn to evaluate. What level am I now? What have I accomplished so far? Am I still on it? Having someone who can evaluate us is a good help and an additional encouragement. But if you are someone who are shy to share your progress or can’t really find the right accountability partner yet, build a system that can help you evaluate. For example, for the financial goal, a budget is the accountability system. By comparing budget and actual savings, you can assess your progress about your savings. For the health goals like running, there are many apps that you can use on your smart phone. You can choose either options or have both. But bottom line, figure out a way to evaluate the progress of your goals as this will keep you on track and keep you going.

So that’s about it. I hope this will encourage you to set goals and get going for 2017. Happy New Year!