Most high achieving men and women are intensely goal-oriented. While most under-achieving men and women have poorly defined goals, if they have any goals at all. This is one of the main reasons why the majority of people suffer from the frustration of feeling that they are accomplishing very little in life.

The ability to set goals and make plans for their accomplishment is the master skill of success. It is the single most important skill that you can learn and perfect. Goal-setting will do more to help you achieve the things you want in life than anything else you can do.

Becoming an expert at goal-setting and goal-achieving is something that you absolutely must do if you want to reach your full potential as a human being. Goals enable you to do the work you want to do, to live where you want to live, to be with the people you enjoy, and to become the kind of person you want to become.

When you develop the habit of setting clear and realistic goals there is no limit to the financial rewards you can obtain. All you have to do is to set a specific goal for financial success your desire, make a plan, and then work the plan until you achieve it.

The payoff for setting goals and making plans is being able to choose the kind of life you want to live. With this being said, its amazing that so few people set goals. Over the past 50 years many organizations and educational institutions have conducted studies on goal-setting. Virtually every study has shown the same startling results. On average, only 3 percent of Americans have written goals and less than 1 percent review and rewrite their goals on a daily basis.

With all of this evidence showing what a person can achieve by setting goals. Why is that so few people actually do it? Over the past 25 years I have consulted with and spoken to thousands of men and women about goal setting, and I have found that there are five common reasons why people dont set goals:

The first reason Ive found that people dont set goals, is that they feel theyve done well without setting goals. If its not broken, why fix it?

Given the power of goals to transform lives, Im always astonished how often I hear this from people. Its easy to be satisfied if youve never set goals. Its convenient to say that everything is fine if you dont know where youre going. You can always say that any destination you arrive at is OK.

The second reason I most often hear from people, is that they do have goals, they just keep them in their head. Most people believe in the fewest motions possible to get things done.

A person who thinks this way, does not have goals. They have wishes, desires, hopes, and dreams. Dreams come to all of us as we go about our daily business. Wishes drift in and out of our conscious thoughts. We think of new interests wed like to pursue, changes wed like to make, and great things wed like to achieve, someday. Were pretty sure we have the ability, and fully intend to do all those things sometime in the future.

The ludicrous nature of this way of thinking is that unless those vague intentions are translated into specific goals, they will drift into that never-never land called Might Have Been, and they will take your life with them.

Unfortunately, this is precisely the way most people conduct their lives. They claim they have goals when they do not. Until dreams are translated into specific goals, thay rarely become a reality, and even if they do, the person is denied the deep satisfaction that would have come from translating his or her dream into a specific goal and achieving it.

The third reason I find that people dont set goals is that theyre afraid of failing. The person feels that without goals, he or she doesnt have to worry about failing.

The problem with this way of thinking is that it goes against the foundation of life itself: you cant be born without risk. Youre only kidding yourself if you think you can live without risk, no matter how carefully you tend to the financial, physical, and emotional aspects of your life. There are always risks in everything you do and setting goals involves risk.

You may succeed. But you may also fail. If you fail, then what? Risk taking is part of the process of growth. So is failure. You must be willing to risk failure again and again if you want to be in the company of the worlds most successful men and women.

Make a friend of failure. Use it as a valuable learning experience, a great motivator, and a necessary step on the road to success. At one point or another in their lives, some of the worlds most successful people have been miserable failures. Winston Churchill once said, I would rather fail my way to success than be a successful failure.

The fourth reason I find that people dont set goals, is that they feel that by setting goals and achieving them, they will be expected to live up to their goals in the future. After achieving a goal where is their motivation going to come from to move on from that point?

This train of thought is even more ludicrous than the first three, because you become more motivated as you approach a goal. When you achieve a goal, you will want to try a more demanding one. Nothing approaches the motivating power that comes from systematically setting and achieving your own demanding goals.

The fifth reason I have found why people dont set goals, is that they only set goals when theres a need. I always hear things like, I set goals when I have a major project at work, or when I want a larger house, or a new car.

People with this type of thinking need to understand that goal setting is not an occasional need. It is a process that transforms lives and that mastering this process of setting and achieving goals is at the heart of life itself. If you dont act intentionally, with purpose, you will be condemned to a life of mediocrity, in which anything meaningful occurs only accidentally.

I have given the most common reasons why most people dont set goals, now lets talk about criteria for effective goals that turn dreams into satisfying reality.

1. They must have a definite purpose. Why do you want to achieve the goal?

2. They must written and rewritten every day.

3. They must be measurable.

4. They must be visible in a place where you can see them everyday.

5. They must have deadlines. A goal without a deadline is simply a wish.

6. They must be realistic and achievable.

7. They must be demanding.

8. Goals must be flexible. You will often have to make changes to achieve your goal.

Effective goals will keep you very focused. Nothing will get in your way. Effective goals will liberate you rather than shackle you. They will improve the quality of your life. Effective goals will give your life balance, they will motivate you, they will challenge you, and they will allow you to live your dreams. Without goals, you can only dream your dreams.

Copyright2006 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.