Time can’t be managed, time is uncontrollable and we can only manage ourselves and our use of time. That is all that can be done. Time management is actually self management.
For effective time management we need the ability to plan, delegate, organize, direct and control every aspect of our lives just to find 30 minutes a day that is devoted to something productive that is just for us.

Long-term goals (over 5 years) are those things that won’t happen overnight, no matter how hard you work to achieve them.
They make take a long time to accomplish (hence the reason they are called long term goals), so give yourself a reasonable amount of time, that are based on your best estimates of what it will take to achieve them.
Examples of long-term goals might include college education for a child, retirement plan or purchasing a home. Whatever the case, these goals generally require longer commitments and often more money in the end.

Intermediate-term goals (1-5 years) are the type of goals that can’t be executed overnight but might not take many years to accomplish. Examples might include purchasing/replacing a car, getting an education or certification, or paying off your debts like credit cards etc. (depending on the amount).
Short-term goals (within one year) generally take one year or less to achieve, based on the date the task is needed, the total estimated cost, and the required savings.
What are your goals? To find out, you need to make up a list, decide which timeline your goal fits into, detail the steps necessary to achieve your goals, then take action toward reaching those goals. It’s that simple.
You might be wondering where to start when deciding how to go about to start your financial goals. These are some basic tips to help you in making the best choices for you.
After looking at these tips, it is best for you to go out and do some research to find the method(s) that suit you best.
• Begin by taking 5%-10% out of each pay check and put it in a savings account
• Look into different investment strategies such as IRA’s, stocks, RRSP’s, mutual Funds, personal investments etc. There are many more and all can assist you in short and long term goals.
• Start making a budget for yourself that leaves you with some extra money and follow it
• Use your coupons that is why they are there. It seems like small savings, but add together you could save 20-30 dollars at each trip to the market
• Shop around for bargains
• Do not live outside of your means
• Work with a credit counselor to get help in lowering your monthly expenses and get rid of your debt
These are just some of the things that you can do when beginning to realize your financial goals. Of course, you also have to follow the steps in the above sections on how to successfully set goals.
The steps to setting goals successfully don’t change, only the methods that you use to go about it. By that I mean; when it is career wise, work to get noticed; for relationships, work on maintaining your intimacy or getting it back; in financial matters, work to save and invest money etc. It really is that easy.

The second step in personal financial planning, and the topic of this section, is choosing and following a course toward achieving your long-term financial goals.

As with anything else in life, without financial goals and specific plans for meeting them, you will just drift along and leave our future to chance. A wise man once said: “Most people don’t plan to fail; they just fail to plan.”
The end result is the same and it is a failure to reach financial independence.

The third step in personal financial planning is learning how to build a financial safety net, which is like to having a retirement fund for when you are no longer generating any income.

FOUR SIMPLE STEPS FOR SETTING FINANCIAL GOALS

Step 1: Identify and write down your financial goals, whether they are saving to send your kids to college or University, buying a new car, saving for a down payment on a house, going on vacation, paying off credit card debt, or planning for you and your spouse’s retirement.

Step 2: Break each financial goal down into several short-term (less than 1 year), medium-term (1 to 3 years) and long-term (5 years or more) goals; which will make this process easier.

Step 3: Educate yourself and do your research. Read Money magazine or a book about investing, or surf the Internet’s investment web sites. Do not be afraid of the stock market.

Yes, there is a potential for loss, but if you do your research and get a trustworthy broker, you can ensure your financial future. Just remember not to put all of your eggs in one basket.

Diversify your portfolio. With a little effort you can learn enough to make educated decisions that will increase your net worth many times over. Then identify small, measurable steps you can take to achieve these goals, and put this action plan to work.

Step 4: Evaluate your progress as often as needed. Review your progress monthly, quarterly, or at any other interval you feel comfortable with, but at least semi-annually, to determine if your program is working.

If you’re not making a satisfactory amount of progress on a particular goal, re-evaluate your approach and make changes as necessary.

There are no hard and fast rules for implementing a financial plan. The important thing is to at least do something as opposed to nothing, and to start NOW.

Make sure the activities that you pick meet the goals for what you want to get out of it.

Set Yourself up for Success

It’s important not to undermine yourself with goals that are too long-term or impossible to attain.

For example; “I want to lose all my extra weight before summer” is too unrealistic; particularly if you have a great deal of weight to lose and summer is 3 months away.

Too often goals are an end result of whatever program we choose, and not a part of it. You have to make goals an active part of your life by creating goals that lead to the next goal works best.
It is just like the backwards technique mentioned in the above section. For instance, setting a goal to lose 10 pounds puts the goal at the end without putting too much pressure on you right away. You can add to this goal once it is achieved and so on.

Setting a goal to join an aerobics class and attend it three times a week makes the weight loss goal a part of the program.

You will have set a goal that is achievable almost immediately. This gives you a sense of accomplishment, which is an incentive to setting and achieving the next goal.

Keep a Record

Write your goals down so you have something to look forward to as well as back on. To begin, map out no more than eight weeks of activities towards your first fitness goal.
Working within your lifestyle, decide on a regular program. It’s not necessary to work out every day, especially when beginning a new program as your body is not used to the stress. Our bodies become tired if expected to do hard work seven days a week.
Exercising every other day is a safe and realistic goal. Keep track of how much time you want to spend doing an activity, followed by how much time you will actually spend on it.
Not everyone is looking at fitness and health to lose weight. Perhaps you are just looking to better your health.

In this case you should think of this; we tend to focus most on the area of our health in our lives, when our health is already failing or less than stellar.

Unfortunately, it may sometimes take a life threatening event, illness or some type of physical rehabilitation to give us a wake up call to make tough changes in our current health habits.

We try to follow through on sound health principles such as enough sleep, a healthy diet and plenty of exercise, yet we may not have the time in our busy schedule or have strong enough will power to implement a balanced and healthy lifestyle.

With the pressures of the fast pace world in which we live, stress can set in and can take its toll. These days we are on the road more often.

What that means is that we are eating on the road as well, which doesn’t always offer us the best or healthiest choices.

We are lucky to get six, maybe seven hours of sleep per night while we now work at least six days per week.

The old saying, “At least I have my health” is finally starting to mean something to a great deal of people. You might be wondering what you can do to improve your health.

The first thing to do is to prioritize what is most important to you in your own individual lifestyle. You can begin by asking yourself these questions:
1. What is my current exercise goal this month or do I even have one?
2. What gets in my way when starting or continuing a balanced health maintenance program?
3. What is my target weight and my plan and timeframe to get there?
3. How can I improve in getting more sleep?
5. What is my ideal overall appearance hopes?
6. Would a personal trainer help me develop and reach my goals more effectively and can I afford one?
7. Of the meals I eat each month, how can I eat healthier, and what can I change in order to eat healthier without getting bored?
8. What books and classes can I take to improve upon my health?
9. Is it time for me to go in for a complete physical and when the last one was that I had
10. How can I reduce or completely eliminate alcohol, chemical dependencies and/or smoking in my body?
11. What ways may I be able to cook in a healthier manner?
12. How can I improve my current heart rate, blood pressure, and cholesterol count?
The fact of the matter is that it doesn’t matter what you fitness/health goals are. If you have read the above sections on setting goals properly, and this section about fitness and health, you are ready to go.

You have to be honest with yourself at all times when it comes to your personal goals. If you are unsure as to what constitutes good and balanced nutrition, visit http://www.foodguidepyramid.com for the correct nutritional information.

You should also consult a doctor before making any changes to your diet or exercise regimen to ensure that you will not harm yourself. That is all there is to it!

The following guidelines will help you to set effective goals and help you manage your time in an efficient manner that will cause those goals to become reality.

From there you can just shorten your overall goal spans for example, you set a 5 year plan, 1 year plan, 6 month plan, and 1 month plan of progressively smaller goals that you should reach to achieve your lifetime goals.

Each of these should be based on the previous plan. It is the best way to begin to achieve a lifetime that is filled with and results in a life without any failed wishes. It results in a life without regret.

You see, by starting out slowly, you are giving yourself the chance to realize and work on achieving the goals that you set out to.

Nobody ever succeeds at attaining a goal that was forced through. Those that tried never really got what they were hoping for. In rushing through and trying to achieve your goals quickly you will likely miss a few key aspects that can really change your outcome.

Think of it this way; if you were to run a 10K marathon and decided to take a cab for half of the journey; have you really achieved that goal? Would you be satisfied when you crossed the finish line?

It would be a hollow victory that could only provide a moment’s happiness.

Finally set a daily to do list of the things that you should do today to work towards your lifetime goals.

At an early stage these goals may be to read books and gather information on the achievement of your goals. This will help you to improve the quality and realism of your goal setting and in effect; make it easier to achieve them.

You also have to review your plans, and make sure that they fit the way in which you want to live your life.

Once you have decided what your first set of plans will be, keep the process going by reviewing and updating your to-do list on a daily basis.

You have to periodically review the longer term plans, and change them to reflect your changing priorities and experiences in your life.

By setting up this structure of plans you can break even the biggest life goal down into a number of small tasks that you need to do each day to reach the lifetime goals.

The first step in setting personal goals is to consider what you want to achieve in your lifetime, as setting lifetime goals that gives you the overall perspective that shapes all other aspects of your decision making process.

To help give you a broad, and balanced coverage of all important areas in your life, try to set goals in some or all of the following categories:
• Artistic:
Do you want to achieve any artistic goals? If so, what is it? Do you want to write a book; paint a masterpiece, or write a song?
• Attitude:
Does your own mindset hold you back from making progress? Is there any part of the way that you behave that upsets you for example, do you talk too much? If so, set a goal to improve your behavior or find a solution to the problem.
• Career:
What level do you want to reach in your career? Is it your goal to be the boss or own your own company someday, or do you want to be the president of someone else’s company?
• Education:
Is there any knowledge you want to acquire in particular or some area of study that you would like to pursue? What information and skills will you need to achieve these goals?
• Family:
Do you want to be a parent? If so, how are you going to be a good parent? How do you want your partner or family members to see you?
• Financial:
How much do you want to earn by what age in your life? What can you do to make that come about?
• Physical:
Are there any athletic goals you want to achieve, or do you want good health deep into old age? What steps are you going to take to achieve this?
• Pleasure:
How do you want to enjoy yourself? You should ensure that some of your life is geared toward making yourself happy for no reason other than being happy
• Service
Do you want to make the world a better place by your existence? If so, how?
Once you have decided your goals in these categories, you have to assign a priority to them if you want to succeed.

Then review the goals and re-prioritize until you are satisfied that they reflect the shape of the life that you want to lead.

Also, you should ensure that the goals that you have set are the goals that you want to achieve, and not what your parents, spouse, family, or employers want them to be.

Success only happens when you are working for your own well being because doing it for others will ensure that you sabotage your own success.

Basically, you can choose to work any goal that you feel is necessary for your health, stability and happiness.
Goal setting is nothing more than a formal process for personal planning. By setting goals on a routine basis you decide what you want to achieve, and then move in a step-by-step manner towards the achievement of these goals.

The process of setting goals and targets allows you to choose where you want to go in life. By knowing exactly what you want to achieve, you know what you have to concentrate on to do it. You also know what nothing more than a distraction is.

Goal setting is a standard technique used by professional athletes, successful business people and high achievers in all fields. It gives you long term vision and provides you with short term motivation.

It helps to focus your attention and knowledge which helps you to organize your resources. By setting sharp and clearly defined goals, you can measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals. You can see forward progress in what might previously have seemed a long pointless effort.

By setting goals, you will also raise your self confidence, as you recognize your and ability to meet the goals that you have set. The process of achieving goals and seeing this achievement gives you confidence that you will be able to achieve higher and more difficult goals later on.

Goals are set on a number of different levels. In the first place, you decide what you want to do with your life and what large scale goals you want to achieve.

Second, you break these down into the smaller aims that you must hit so that you reach your overall lifetime goals.

Finally, once you have your plan, you start working towards achieving it.

With this guide, you will learn how to set goals in your life for:
• Healthy relationships
• Work
• Finances
• Personal health and fitness
• Friendships and more.

By setting goals you can:

• Achieve more in your lifetime
• Improve your overall performances in life
• Increase your motivation to achieve the most out of life
• Increase your pride and satisfaction in your achievements
• Improve your self-confidence
• Plan to eliminate attitudes that hold you back and cause unhappiness

People who use goal-setting effectively:

• suffer less from stress and anxiety
• concentrate and focus better
• show more self-confidence
• perform better in all areas of life
• Are happier and more satisfied with life

Goal Setting Also Helps Self-Confidence

By setting goals, and measuring their achievement, you are able to see what you have done and what you are capable of.

The process of achieving goals and seeing their achievement gives you the confidence and a belief in yourself that you need to be able to achieve higher and more difficult goals.

Providing that you have the self-discipline to carry it through, goal setting is also relatively easy. The following section on goal setting will give you effective guidelines to help you to use this technique effectively.