Goal setting is an essential factor towards living your life yielding strong rewards in all aspects of your life.

Smart goal setting allows you to have a choice where and how far you want to go in life. It is by knowing exactly where to put your focus on and give those areas improvement. It also gives you the guide of which part of your life is merely a distraction to your long range plans. It concentrates your accumulated knowledge and helps you organize your available resources.

Benefits of smart goal setting
By smart goal setting you will be able to:
- achieve, sometimes even more than your initial goal
- improve the quality of your performance
- increase your self-motivation to achieve
- increase your satisfaction in the work you have done
- improve your self-confidence and self-esteem
- plan to eliminate attitudes that causes distractions (e.g. the ones that hold you back causing unhappiness)

How to start smart goal setting?
The first step in setting your goals is to put into careful consideration what you want to achieve in your entire lifetime. Your lifetime goals will give all of your actions and decisions in the right direction. It shapes all other aspects your every decision making.

Since this is about your lifetime goals, you may well be looking at a broad horizon. Here are some important areas in your life that needs consideration:
- career and finances
- education
- family
- art and sports
- physical and attitude
- entertainment and pleasure (travel, etc.)
- social and public service

After carefully choosing what you want to achieve in every category, make a priority list that will number these categories from 1 to 7. You may even add more aspects into the list if needed. Remember that this is your smart goal setting list, it should fit your needs - not your parents, peers, family or people around you. It is for you - not anyone else's.

Check to see if all is in place. A careful review is important - this will ensure that all is in place the way you want them to be. Review your plans every now and then to make sure this is what you really want and that you are doing everything right. If modifications and reworking are necessary, then by all means do so.

From hereon, base your every decision on your goals. You can make a daily list of things you are going to do that will help you reach your goals. Simple things like reading a book and gathering of information on what you want to do in the future will help you get started and maintain this throughout the entire process.

The right attitude for smart goal setting
One important thing in smart goal setting is self-discipline. This will help you carry through your dreams and vision in life despite the problems and hassles that may arise. If self-discipline is present, goal setting is also relatively easy because your positive attitude towards your effective guidelines will help you rather than hold you back.

Researches and surveys have shown that people who set their goals in life effectively suffer less from stress and have fewer tendencies to have anxiety attacks. They also learn to concentrate and performance better. Finally, they show more self-confidence and are more at peace with themselves making them happier and satisfied people.

Be one of them now, start your smart goat setting plan today.