Welcome to my 6-part series entitled Visioning and Goal Setting: Projecting Your Tomorrow and Heading Toward it Today.

This series is dedicated to teaching you all about the process of visioning and goal setting. I will share powerful strategies to create a vision for your life, and how to put a strategic plan into action that will help you achieve it.

When you look back on your life one day, what do you want to have accomplished? Do you see the remainder of your life as limitless in its potential? Do you feel you have great, untapped promise?

Most people feel they are capable of a life far more enriching then the one they are currently living, but they don’t know how to get it. The truth is our success in life is in direct proportion to our clarity of purpose, and our level of passion, belief, and action. Studies have revealed time and time again that high performers in life all have a clear vision and goal of what they want.

Take high-performing athletes, such as Tiger Woods. They perform at these levels not only due to their talent, but also because they spend vast amounts of time setting goals to perform at their best. Then they visualize themselves making the perfect swing, sending the ball straight down the fairway, or throwing the ball perfectly into the receiver’s hands. Having a clear vision of what you want is the hallmark of every form of high achievement.

Many well-known authors and scholars have purported this fact – you will accomplish more in life if you create a visual picture of what you want.

Buddha once said “All that we are is the result of what we have thought.”

Having dreams and goals is directly related to our fulfillment and success in life, but they are useless if we don’t follow through on them. So, what clear vision and course of action do you have for your future? Or are your dreams only vague ideas with no plan to accomplish them?

To achieve anything, you must know what you want. And to get clear on what you want, you must first create your own vision.

Visioning is the process of creating a clear, very detailed picture in your mind of what you want for all aspects of your life – health, finances, relationship, career and more. Visioning uses both mental and physical tools of your mind and body, such as the thoughts and actions to create and realize your goals.

With visioning, you tap into your imagination and create a future vision of what you want for your life. Then, once you have a vision, you plan out the steps necessary to reach it. This helps you to stay focused and eliminate the distractions that will hold you back or take you off course.

With your vision alive at the forefront of your mind, you will stay centered on the right road that will lead to your specific destination.

Let’s now look at the benefits of visioning. At first, the process and outcomes of visioning may seem vague and unessential, but the impact in your life and the long-term benefits are substantial. Here are just some of the benefits of visioning that you can enjoy:

• Visioning helps you get beyond self-limiting thoughts.
• It gives you direction and purpose, and a greater sense of well being and joy.
• It promotes laser-like focus, action and resolve.
• And visioning encourages and builds confidence and gives you more energy and a positive mental attitude.

Remember, your future is built in your mind first, and only then does it start to materialize in your physical world, once you have a plan and you take actions steps to carry out your plan.

If creating a vision sounds like something that would give your life more clarity and direction, then be sure to check back for lesson number 2, where I show you exactly how to create your own.

When creating a vision for your life, and setting goals to help you obtain that vision, you don’t want to set just any kind of goal, you want to set a S-M-A-R-T Goal.

What is a SMART Goal? A SMART Goal is an acronym that captures all the necessary components of a goal that is well thought out, planned and articulated. It’s the criteria that a goal needs in order for it to be achieved. SMART goals are:

Specific: Very clear about what will be accomplished.
Measurable: Include a quantifiable way of tracking progress from start to finish.
Achievable: Challenging, and at the same time realistic.
Relevant: In harmony with core values and passions.
Timely: Have deadlines attached to it.

“S” – Make Your Goals Specific

In order for you to achieve a goal, you must be very clear about what you’re after. This is to help you focus your efforts and clearly define what you are going to do.
When being specific in setting your goal, clearly define WHAT are you going to do?
What do you want to ultimately accomplish and HOW are you going to do it?

“M” – Make Your Goals Measurable

It’s crucial to be able to track your progress towards reaching a goal. That’s why all goals need to be measurable. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. By making it measurable, you will know whether you are on track. Being able to measure progress can also motivate you to keep going, help you stay on track, reach your target dates, and experience the exhilaration of achievement. So it’s important to include exact amounts, dates, etc. in order to establish the amount of success you are meeting with.

“A” – Make Your Goals Achievable

A good goal is one that, on the one hand, challenges us, but on the other hand, is not so unrealistic that we have absolutely no chance of accomplishing it. Make sure the goal can be achieved.
Goals you set which are too far out of your reach, you probably won’t stick to. Although you may start with the best of intentions, you will become demoralized and your confidence will wither away. A goal needs to stretch you slightly so you feel you can do it and it will need a real commitment from you.

“R” – Make Your Goals Relevant

Do you really, really want this goal or does it just sound nice? Goals need to be relevant to what you really want for your life. The goal needs to be realistic for you and where you are at the moment. By keeping goals aligned with your values, talents, and passions you will develop the focus you need to get what you want. Goals themselves do not provide any happiness. Instead, it’s when we achieve goals that are in harmony with our values and talents that we experience fulfillment.

“T” – Make Your Goals Timely

The greatest motivating force is when there’s a sense of urgency. Putting an end point on your goal gives you a clear target to work towards. If you don’t set a time, the commitment is too vague. It tends not to happen because you feel you can start at any time. This means you must define deadlines in order to get things done. Without deadlines, you have no real compelling reason or motivation to even start working on your goals. Set a fixed year, month, day, and even hour for accomplishing your goal. Time must be measurable, attainable and realistic.

Monthly meeting for Coaches Exchange members to discuss their coaching and business goals for the upcoming month.

Roundtable discussion for Coaches Exchange Program.

The term implies an equal 50-50 split between juggling your personal and professional lives, but that’s not what work-life balance is about. A positive work-life balance results in your happiness with your complete life, and work and home. That balance is different for everyone. You and your family could be perfectly happy with you working six days a week, 12 hours per day. Another person might need entirely different balance.

Think of a work-life balance not as a single goal to be achieved as rather an on-going process that needs to be revisited from time to time. Personal and professional needs and desires are constantly shifting; what may have worked for you before might not be the right balance for now or the future.

Finding the starting point

Once you’ve made the decision to find your balance, the first step is to figure out what you actually need from your combined life. Do you need family time? Do you need to engage in a favorite hobby, sport, or community service? Do you need more time at work? Do you need time to work at home without distractions?

Think about all your needs, and then consider what it will take to achieve them. Maybe it’s a break from a feeling you’re on call 24 hours a day. Maybe it’s to feel reconnected with your family. Or perhaps it’s some time to yourself to do what you need to get done.

A few possible solutions to some of the more common balance issues are offered below.

Schedule personal time into your work schedule. If you have difficulty working time for yourself into your schedule, mark it in your work calendar. Treating your personal time like a meeting will not only mark you as “unavailable”, it will make you less likely to view personal time as “free time” to get some more work done.

Turn off the work phone at family time. Unless you are on-call or in the middle of a work-related crisis event, turn off your cell phone when you are on personal time. Leave the Blackberry behind and put the notebook computer where you aren’t tempted to check your work email.

Meals together can mean reconnection. Today’s hectic, mixed-schedule families mean a lot of us don’t sit down for dinner anymore. Try to make a point of having meals with your loved ones as often as possible. If dinner hours are usually work hours for you, then use the weekend mornings as Saturday Pancakes or Sunday Waffles. Eat at your dining room table, not in front of a computer or the TV. If you go out to eat, go to a sit down restaurant where you can have a conversation at the table. Make it a policy not to discuss work; focus instead on topics that are of common interest to everyone at the table.

Make a separate work at home space. This can be especially important if your business is home-based. Designate a certain room or part of your room as your office space. Do your work there, not on the kitchen counter or in bed or at the kid’s soccer games. Make sure your family understands than when you are in this space, you are working and are not to be bothered unless it’s an emergency. When you leave your home-office, leave your work there until the next day.

Maintain a work schedule. This is another important tip if you work out from your home. Make a schedule for your work day. Don’t do dishes, run errands, or decide to vacuum the house during “work hours”. Mark a point in your work schedule where it’s time to wind down for the day, just as if you were in a 9-5 office setting and the clock were about to tick to 5. Finish up that last email and stop making work-related calls. Make a To Do list for the next day, put it where you will see it and leave the office behind.