The significance of a man is not in what he attains
but in what he longs to attain.
Kahlil Gibran
Writing out your goals
Writing things down makes them more concrete. And, a great way to get started on securing that better or different life you takes little more than a piece of paper and pen, or a word processing program. We have discussed other techniques in the past; see, Life is What You Make it: Make a Plan.
Write at the top, “Ways to Improve,” and start brainstorming. Consider every single aspect of your life and don’t leave anything out. There are no wrong answers. Your body and health, finances, relationships, education, house and home environment and career are all fair game. Write down every thing that you feel would make your life better, no matter how crazy it may seem right now. This isn’t the time to judge the value of any of the ideas. Just record it and move on to the next one.
Give yourself the time you need. Work on your list off and on for several days if you need to. What you will find is that the first five or ten ideas will come quickly and easily. These are the things that you already know you should be doing but are not. The others may take a little more time and thought. While there’s no maximum, shoot for at least 50. Often the best ideas come later in the process.
Remember you are only brainstorming at this point. You would never, ever make a “to do” list this long. Right?
Now that you have your list, let’s comb through it to get the absolute best results from it.
1. 10 Best. Read over your list and pick the 10 best ideas. Several of the items on your list will probably be totally unusable. That’s perfectly normal. Many of the ideas will be possible, but not really all that important to you. Focus on those things that would have the biggest impact on your life if you were able to accomplish them. Take some time to really consider your options. Sometimes simple and easy changes can create very significant effects. Get the 10 best, but be sure to save the rest of the list for another day.
2. Rank them. Rank them from easiest to accomplish to most difficult. You should start with the easier items to get some momentum built up before you tackle the big stuff. You will also have more faith in your ability to accomplish things if you have some recent successes under your belt. But before you discard any of the ideas, imagine getting them all done. How much would all of that improve your life? Amazing, right?! Save these other goals for your Goal Setting Journal.
3. Implement. All the planning in the world is useless if you never do anything about your ideas and goals. Begin with the first item. Implement the first idea and make your way through your list. Your list now has only 10 items on it and this is where the Pareto’s Principle comes in.
The Pareto Principle basically states that 20 percent of the actions available to you will give you 80% of your results. So, accomplishing these 10 things is likely to have a huge impact on your life. Remember, you are only working on 20% of your initial list of 50+ items.
Life List
Pergaps you already know that there is a specific area of your life that you really need to work on. Your list can be focused on just that one topic. For example, you might want to make a list focused on getting healthy or becoming wealthy. After all, it’s your life and you can apply your focus where you choose.
If you feel you need to make a specific list, try this:
Rate all aspects of your life on the scale of 1 – 10. Start with the areas that are most important to you at the top of the scale. Then fill in each section of your list with ways that you can make these most important areas more fulfilling. Remember to set reasonable, but challenging goals.
Focusing on the most important areas in your life is one of the fastest ways to see real progress. No matter how well you’re doing, making this list truly is a worthwhile exercise. You can take better and proactive control of your life everyday by keeping your ideas for improvement at the forefront of your mind. Before you know it, you’ll have your best life ever.
Thoughts?
Other Related Posts
1. Genesis Series (3): Getting stuff done (Pomodoro technique)
2. Self-Discipline: Building yours up
3. Why Self-Improvement Is Important
photo credit 1: http://www.flickr.com/photos/pshegubj/3402875708/sizes/z/in/photostream/
photo credit 2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/samchurchill/4182826573/sizes/o/in/photostream/
[…] 9. Use the Pareto Principle. This principle states that 20% of the actions you could take will provide you with 80% of the benefits. So focus on the tasks that will accomplish the most. Unfortunately, these are often the tasks that are the least enjoyable. You might be surprised how little you really have to do if you focus on the critical 20%. See post: Pareto’s road to self-improvement. […]