Goal Setting Builds Self Confidence
3. You limit your self-confidence when you don’t set goals
People often get in touch because they are working towards something and feel confused about what to do next and which direction to take. When I ask them about the bigger goal they have set, or any smaller goals they have set to reach their big goal they are vague and often unsure. I know throughout my life that I achieve what I focus on and I can only focus when I have set down what it is I want to do.
Once I had spent time developing my self confidence I found that I wasn’t that bothered about setting goals. I focused mainly on setting my intention and visualising what I wanted to achieve, however, I didn’t always get what I wanted and many times I didn’t succeed in completing the goal because something else came along to take my attention off it.
Setting goals is about more than having a purpose to work towards. It is also about helping you keep your eye on the prize and avoid being distracted by other things.
Make Sure Your Goal Is Challenging
When you look at the goal you want to set for yourself you find that the end result is far more satisfying when you set yourself a huge target. Something that is challenging and that you can work towards. Its easy to set a goal that you know is a sure thing. It’s much more challenging to set a goal that you have no idea of how you are going to achieve it.
I used to set low goals, goals that didn’t take much to achieve, or I would set the wrong goal, goals that I did for ego reasons to prove how great I was, goals that I really didn’t enjoy working towards and even goal that I wasn’t really bothered about whether I achieved or not. It took me a while to work out what kind of goal I wanted to set that would challenge me but also provide me with the passion to keep working towards it. I found it only after I had spent time building my self confidence and looking at what I really wanted for my life.
The worst time of my life was when I had set no goals at all, I was drifting though life always “gonna” do something but never getting round to it and yet I was totally unhappy about the way my life was going.
The question to ask yourself here is “What Goals did I set out to achieve and how much did I grow and develop as a result?”
You know when you have truly achieved something great because at the end of it you can see just how much you have grown as a person. Whether it worked out exactly as you planned doesn’t matter, as long as you know you gave it your best shot. Of course we all want everything to work out all the time but that isn’t realistic. In fact when reading the autobiographies of successful people the one thing I noticed is that many of them failed as much, if not more, than as they succeeded.
I gave myself the time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and I made it big and bold. I want to encourage you to do the same even if you have no idea how you will achieve it. When I first thought about living in the Caribbean for 3-5 months each year and enjoying a strong supportive network I had no idea how that was going to happen. I knew no one in the Caribbean except a sister I never grew up with and so didn’t know.
All I knew is that when my youngest reaches 18 (2017) I will be living outside of the UK during the winter, living in different parts of the world starting with the Caribbean and I will use the internet to build my income as well as continuing my work as a life coach.
That was back in 2007 and from that moment everything in my world changed to begin moving me towards that (a story I will tell another time) and over the next 4 years I will be developing this blog and a few others to help me earn an income as well as continuing to build my career as a coach, speaker and workshop leader.
It all happened because I wrote down and set myself a big goal I had no idea how I was going to achieve it. Traveling and moving abroad was one of my biggest fears, and I had to work through that. Knowing I was going to live in places where I might know absolutely no one was another. Knowing I will be traveling without my children also took some working through. All of these things and more I worked through as I worked on my goal to get myself there.
Now it is time for you to set your goal. When you write it out it should leave you excited and scared all at the same time. That’s when you know you have hit the right target!
Having a life coach can help you work through this process making it easier for you to figure out while helping you to stay focused on your end goal. Click the link to find out how my personal life coaching services work and get in touch to talk to me about what you want to achieve.
About Diane Corriette
I write on this self development blog about building self confidence, and living a life of full self expression where you are free to be you. Being able to be confident is not so much about how you think but what you feel. To successfully build self confidence you must use your thoughts to create an image of who you want to be, and your emotions to help you feel this amazing new you and then visualise & focus on it until it becomes your reality.
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I need to give myself that time to really figure out what I want to do with my life and how I want to make changes, sometimes I think there is so much going on it can be difficult to really focus on that.
Yes. Whenever I set myself goals I find that it really does motivate me to keep going and if I don’t I find my life drifts. I think some times I really need more structure than I realize.
I never set goals often but need to make more of an effort to try. Thank you for this post
@Eva. It is important that we do give ourselves that time to figure out what we want from life otherwise time slips by and nothing happens. It doesn’t always have to be something huge – it could be as simply as ‘wanting to play the guitar’ – not all goals have to be major.
@Lucy. That is how I feel too, with goals life is motivated and without them I drift. Great that you recognised that about yourself.
@Yasmin. You are welcome. I hope you decide to set one for yourself to see if life feels differently as a result.
Thank you for this wonderful posts with great insights