Write an article based on this "Discuss values. Encourage the person to be as specific as possible. Assess whether the goal is achievable. Encourage prioritizing the goals. Participate in writing a plan. Brainstorm about obstacles."
If someone you know is looking to improve his/her life, but doesn't have a clear goal in mind yet, you can help with goal setting. A good place to start is to have a discussion with this person about his or her values and aspirations. Make it your business to find out what is important to this person. Find out what he/she values most and would like to achieve in life. Ask questions that will lead this person to think about what is most important to her or him. For example: "How important is financial success to you?" "What types of activities do you most enjoy doing?" "What would your ideal career be?" or "What would you most like to improve about yourself?" Through this process, you help this person think about what it is he/she wants from life. This is the first step in setting goals. Once the person you are helping has some idea what he/she wants, the next thing you can do is help make the goal specific. Specific goals are more motivating and effective than vague ones. Getting specific is largely a matter of defining terms. For example, maybe the person you are helping has expressed a desire to be healthier. Encourage him or her to define what that means as specifically as possible. Does it mean losing weight? Eating better? Getting medical attention for chronic health issues? At this stage, it is important for the goal setter to define, as clearly as possible, what it is she or he wants to do. This should be spelled out in such a way that it will be clear when the person has reached his or her goal. Help her or him by again asking questions. For example, you could ask: "What does that mean to you?" "What sorts of things would you need to do to achieve that?" and "How would you know when you had reached your goal?" Here some examples of vague goals: "get healthy," "go to college," and "get a new job." Here are some examples of clear goals: "lose 40 pounds," "get a bachelors degree in philosophy," and "get a full-time job in the field of graphic design." Sometimes, people want things in life that are beyond their reach. As an outsider, you may have a better sense of whether the goals being set are realistic. If not, you should encourage the goal-setter to give this question some thought. Setting goals that can't be reached just sets people up for failure and disappointment. It can discourage them from trying to achieve other goals in the future. For example, imagine you know someone who wants to become a professional basketball player. If this person is only 5 feet tall, this is probably not an achievable goal. No one wants to tell someone he/she is going to fail. Again, a good way to approach this is through asking questions. For example, you might ask: "What obstacles do you think might prevent you from achieving this?" or "Do you think that is a realistic goal?" Help the person test the reality of the goal by encouraging research. How does her/his background and experience compare to professional basketball players? How does she/he compare to others on the current team? Would playing basketball on the varsity team in high school or maybe making a college team be a better goal? Lots of people have many goals in life. But, trying to pursue all of them at once can prevent someone from making much headway on any of them. Encourage the goal setter to think about which goals are most important and pursue those first. Encourage the goal-setter to consider her/his level of commitment to each goal. If he or she isn't very committed to a goal that is going to be very difficult to achieve, this should be moved down the priority list. Once again, a good way to do this is to ask questions. For instance, you might ask: "How important is that goal to you?" or "Of those two goals, which is the more important?" or "That's going to take a lot of hard work. Are you ready to put in the time and effort?" Large goals are more easily achieved if they can be broken down into smaller steps or sub-goals. The goal-setter can use these steps to write up a plan for achieving his/her goal. You can assist by helping brainstorm the steps that would be necessary to achieve it. Again, asking questions is a good way to encourage the goal setter to think in these terms. You might ask: "What steps will you need to take to make that happen?" or "What sorts of resources/qualifications will you need in order to do that?" Effective plans for reaching goals often involve a timeline and deadlines. These help the goal setter stay accountable and add a sense of urgency about achieving each step. Encourage the goal-setter to come up with some sensible deadlines. Ask how long he or she expects the various steps of the plan to take, and let him or her know you'll be checking in to see how things are progressing. In striving to reach any goal, there will be obstacles that will make it harder to achieve. Some of these will be predictable, others will not. Help the goal-setter think about things that might make the goal harder to reach. Thinking about obstacles in advance gives the goal setter (and you) a chance to think about ways to overcome her or him. Here, you might ask the goal-setter questions like: "What can you imagine standing in the way of achieving that goal?" or "Have you considered the possibility that [some challenging situation] might happen? What might you do about that?"