Milestone 5

Now it’s time to get down to business. You’ve got what you need in order to implement goals and take the steps towards improvement. In this Milestone, you will need to create specific goals. To get started, take each priority you determined in Milestone 3 and write town between one and six Must-Haves, for example “spend more time with family” would be a Must-have under the ‘Solid Interpersonal Relationships’ category. Keep in mind that Must-Haves should not resemble a wish list. Must-Haves represent your “absolutely, positively, must-do’s” within a given time period. Organizing your Must-Haves into a chart may prove to be helpful, for example:

Once you’ve got a broad idea of what you’d like to accomplish, you can start getting more specific by setting short-term and long-term goals. Short-term goals are those which you can accomplish within the next week to three months. Long-term goals will take you four months to a year to accomplish. For example, “spending more time with my family” might be a Must-Have on your list. Within this Must-Have, perhaps you’ll set a goal of “having dinner with my family at least 5 nights a week.” In addition to your short and long-term goals, develop a few uber-goals for each category. Uber-goals may take you years to accomplish. They’re visionary. If you’re having trouble setting goals, whether they may be short-term, long-term or Uber-goals, try benchmarking. Business managers use benchmarking to compare their progress to the progress of their competitor’s best-in-class practices. For example, a company experiencing a high number of errors in their billing process may study the billing process of an exemplary company in their own or a related domain to understand how to improve. Admittedly, setting goals can be a difficult task. But don’t give up. If you are struggling, give this Milestone’s activity, Idea Juicing a try.