Why Goal Setting Empowers Us
Setting goals is a major step to empowerment. That might initially seem far-fetched, because targets can often be daunting, associated with tests and hard graft. Many of the goals we make are unattainable, and trying to achieve them just leads to frustration.
But goal setting doesn’t have to be this way. Goal setting is an empowering experience that enables you to make your own life choices and follow through with them in a structured way. Read on to discover 3 ways goal setting empowers us.
Goal setting empowers us to make personal choices
Social media, our peers, our upbringing - there are many outside influences vying to influence our major life decisions. One of the ways goal setting empowers us is that it makes us look closely at what we genuinely want from our lives. When setting goals, sit down with a daily planner and a pen, and think about your life as a whole.
There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to setting goals. Ambition is important, but it means different things to different people.
You could be planning for a career change, a wedding, starting a family, setting up your own freelance business, taking a trip around the world, learning a new language, or writing a novel. With goal setting, the choice is yours to make - and that’s immensely empowering.
Goal setting empowers us to take control of our lives
Let’s say you’re in a room. The room is cluttered with boxes piled high to the ceilings, loose papers stacked against the wall, drawers overflowing with junk. You have no idea where anything is in this room, and no idea where to start looking. You barely have room to move for all the stuff. And you have an important task to complete in this room...with a deadline.
If you don’t know how to develop strong time-management skills or set clear goals, your mind can become this cluttered room. Goal setting empowers us, because it makes us take control of all the loose strands of our lives and organise them. Goal setting makes us tidy the room of our minds - from appointment dates to lifelong dreams.
With goal setting, that dream of setting up a business becomes a plan of action. Once you know what your ultimate goal is, ask yourself how you can reach it. Be specific. Maybe your first step is market research. Set a time, and work for a set period. Where are you going to do your research? Who are you going to target? Let your findings influence your future goal setting.
Goal setting empowers us to reach our full potential
By building organisation and time management skills, goal setting empowers us to reach our full potential. Each of us has our own set of unique abilities and skills, but in many cases, we don’t get a chance to fully express them - either because of a lack of time, energy or motivation.
Goal setting bypasses these obstacles by splitting objectives into smaller goals that can easily be completed within the day, and can fit into your existing routines. For example, if your goal is to become a better artist, it’s difficult to quantify how to reach that goal. What exactly makes a ‘better artist’? This can make it harder to stick to, especially after a long workday.
Goal setting empowers us, because it makes us chip away at goals day by day. An aspiring artist could set a short painting session for thirty minutes at 5:30pm each day in their daily planner, followed by watching two watercolour tutorials every weekend. Goal setting takes out the element of chance from success. You’re fulfilling your own potential through practicing your skills habitually.
Goal setting empowers through enabling you to make personal choices, take control of aspirations, and fulfil your inner potential. Through developing organisational and time management skills, goal setting creates a blueprint to guide you towards your aims.
