Goal Setting Pitfalls

But since we can't see around corners or predict the future, you also need to be aware of the most common mistakes and pitfalls that can ruin your best-laid plans. Check your goals, and see where you may have hit a roadblock.

Contradictory Goals:
This is a common mistake in goal setting--two or more goals with opposing results. Marriage counselors see it a lot in people who want the benefits of being married without giving up the single lifestyle. Or maybe you have a goal to spend more time with your family, but you have a job you want to do well at that requires a lot of face-time. Contradictory goals will frustrate you to no end, because you've given yourself an impossible task. Evaluate your goals in light of their relationship to each other.

False Goals:
These are goals that involve chasing money, approval of others, or even to be able to exert power over others. If you want to become a doctor just to win the approval of someone in your life, that's a false goal. If you want to become a doctor just because of the money you'll earn, that too is a false goal. With false goals, you'll find yourself constantly looking for external motivation to keep you moving forward. Or you'll find that no matter what you say your goal is, you just can't move forward on it. False goals are not an expression of who you really are. Find the courage to tell the truth about what you really want in your life.

Blind Goals:
No matter how nicely laid out the goals, strategies, and actions are, if you don't SEE them, review them, protect them, and let them become part of who and what you are and do on a daily basis, you'll lose track of them. The job, the errands, the latest TV show, worrying about money, worrying about kids, worrying about the economy will all crowd out your time, thoughts, and energy. They may remain in the back of your mind, but you won't gear your life towards them. Instead, write them out, blow them up to poster size, put a sticky on the fridge, frame them for your office anything, and anywhere that you'll see them regularly. Review them in the morning, Recite them at noon, Remember them at night.

Sticky Goals:
It's easy to get plugged into a specific goal, and even though it's not working, you hang on to it out of sheer habit or willfulness. That sets you up for procrastination and frustration. Instead, ask yourself what is serving as your compass, what dictates the direction you want your life to go in. Maybe the goal to weigh a certain weight is about feeling young and desirable again. Maybe the goal to write a bestseller is really about wanting recognition and appreciation for your talents. Focus on the feelings that you are after instead of a one-and-only way to get it.

By being willing to manage the pitfalls and mistakes you discover in your journey - instead of letting them derail you completely -- your long term plans will work out easier, faster, better than even you imagined.
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Kathy Gates is a Certified Emotional Intelligence Life Coach and Freelance Writer living in Scottsdale AZ. She has published articles all over the world and is currently part of a new book, "101 Great Ways To Improve Your Life". You can learn more at her website, www.reallifecoach.com