A goal or objective is a desired result a person or a system envisions, plans and commits to achievea personal or organizational desired end-point

in some sort of assumed development. Many people endeavor to reach goals within a finite time by setting deadlines. It is roughly similar to purpose or aim, the anticipated result which guides reaction, or an end, which is an object, either a physical object or an abstract object, that has intrinsic value.

Goal setting
Main article: Goal setting
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Goal-setting ideally involves establishing specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-targeted objectives. Work on the goal-setting theory suggests that it can serve as an effective tool for making progress by ensuring that participants have a clear awareness of what they must do to achieve or help achieve an objective. On a personal level, the process of setting goals allows people to specify and then work towards their own objectives most commonly financial or career-based goals. Goal-setting comprises a major component of personal development. A goal can be long-term.

Short-term goals
Short-term goals expect accomplishment in a short period of time, such as trying to get a bill paid in the next few days. The definition of a short-term goal need not relate to any specific length of time. In other words, one may achieve (or fail to achieve) a short-term goal in a day, week, month, year, etc. The time-frame for a short-term goal relates to its context in the overall time line that it is being applied to. For instance, one could measure a short-term goal for a month-long project in days; whereas one might measure a shortterm goal for someones lifetime in months or in years. Planners usually define shortterm goals in relation to a long-term goal or goals.

Personal goals
Individuals can set personal goals. A student may set a goal of a high mark in an exam. An athlete might run five miles a day. A traveler might try to reach a destination-city within three hours. Financial goals are a common example, to save for retirement or to save for a purchase. Managing goals can give returns in all areas of personal life. Knowing precisely what one wants to achieve makes clear what to concentrate and improve on, and often subconsciously prioritizes that goal.

Goal setting and planning ("goal work") promotes long-term vision and short-term motivation. It focuses intention, desire, acquisition of knowledge, and helps to organize resources. Efficient goal work includes recognizing and resolving all guilt, inner conflict or limiting belief that might cause one to sabotage one's efforts. By setting clearly defined goals, one can subsequently measure and take pride in the achievement of those goals. One can see progress in what might have seemed a long, perhaps impossible, grind.

Achieving personal goals

Achieving complex and difficult goals requires focus, long-term diligence and effort. Success in any field requires forgoing excuses and justifications for poor performance or lack of adequate planning; in short, success requires emotional maturity. The measure of belief that people have in their ability to achieve a personal goal also affects that achievement. Long term achievements rely on short-term achievements. Emotional control over the small moments of the single day makes a big difference in the long term. One formula for achievement reads A= I*M where A = achievement, I = intelligence, and M = motivation. When motivation equals zero, achievement always equals zero, no matter the degree of intelligence. Similarly for intelligence: if intelligence equals zero, achievement always equals zero. The higher the combination of both intelligence and the motivation, the higher the achievement.

Goal management in organizations

Organizationally, goal management consists of the process of recognizing or inferring goals of individual team-members, abandoning no longer relevant goals, identifying and resolving conflicts among goals, and prioritizing goals consistently for optimal teamcollaboration and effective operations. For any successful commercial system, it means deriving profits by making the best quality of goods or the best quality of services available to the end-user (customer) at the best possible cost. Goal management includes:

Assessment and dissolution of non-rational blocks to success Time management Frequent reconsideration (consistency checks) Feasibility checks Adjusting milestones and main-goal targets

Morten Lind and J.Rasmussen distinguish three fundamental categories of goals related to technological system management:

 Production goal 2. Safety goal 3. Economy goal An organizational goal-management solution ensures that individual employee goals and objectives align with the vision and strategic goals of the entire organization. Goalmanagement provides organizations with a mechanism to effectively communicate corporate goals and strategic objectives to each person across the entire organization. The key consists of having it all emanate from a pivotal source and providing each person with a clear, consistent organizational-goal message. With goal-management, every employee understands how their efforts contribute to an enterprise's success. An example of goal types in business management:

Consumer goals: this refers to supplying a product or service that the market/consumer wants Product goals: this refers to supplying a product outstanding compared to other productsperhaps due to the likes of quality, design, reliability and novelty Operational goals: this refers to running the organization in such a way as to make the best use of management skills[citation needed, technology and resources Secondary goals: this refers to goals which an organization does not regard as priorities

Types of Goals
Part of the reason why goal setting fails is that people dont understand the different types of goals and how to treat them. Goals may involve:

Developing a new skill or improving current skills. Beating old habits, or developing better ones. Producing an outcome, achieving a dream.

The way each of these types of goals are treated is different some are short term, others are medium to long term, some have a clear direction to achieve them, others may have a more torturous path, and some are naturally easier than others to achieve.

Goals can also be:

Big-picture goals your end destination as defined by the Big-Picture' Statements for your various life aspects. These goals are typically not achievable in one simple step there is a journey to be taken to get there. Milestone Goals these are the series of goals that will take you to your destination. Mini Goals milestone goals may need to be broken down into bite-size chunks to make them more manageable.

This is shown diagrammatically as follows, where you can see that your Big-Picture is achieved through a few long-term milestone goals, which are achieved through several medium-term goals, which are achieved through many short-term mini goals. Types of Goals

Like climbing a mountain, you need to start at the bottom with the mini-goals before you can get to the top. This is just recognizing that it takes time and effort to achieve your goals, but achieving the mini-goals along the way keeps you inspired to continue theyre like stepping stones down the river of life or the traffic lights along your road to success! You need all types of goals.

Too many Big-Picture goals can be daunting and it is difficult to measure progress against. Too many mini-goals can make you lose sight of the big picture, but they keep you heading towards your big picture if done right. So you need the right mixture of each, and this will depend on your specific goal. As an example, youre Big Picture might include to become fit and healthy. A milestone goal might therefore be to lose 10kg or to jog 5km in under 30 minutes. Mini-goals might then be along the lines of lose 2kg or walk 5km without stopping these goals are steps in the right direction towards both the milestone goals and ultimate big-picture. Once the mini-goals have been achieved youll get a great sense of satisfaction as you have leaped onto the first stepping stone towards your big-picture, so use this motivation to set the next set of mini-goals to put into action! Of course, all types of goals must be personal.

The 6 Characteristics of Effective Goals 1. Challenging: Your goals should be realistic and suited to your present capabilities. You cant go from habitual couch potato to world-class athlete overnight, or recover the look you had in your 20's if youre pushing 60 right now. Small, progressive steps toward reasonable, long-term goals are crucial to success. But your goals should also push you to extend yourself beyond where you already are. Otherwise you will get bored and quit the game. Example: It's great to work on drinking those eight cups of water everyday, but people do not lose weight from water drinking alone. Get thee off thy butt and go do something that makes you sweat. Then you'll need the water and it won't be so hard to drink. 2. Attainable: Don't take the challenging characteristic (above) too far. Make sure you can actually achieve what you're setting out to do. Otherwise, you will get frustrated and quit the game. Example: Sixty minutes of aerobic exercise may be better than 30 minutes, but two hours may not beespecially if you're so worn out afterward that you have to stop exercising completely for a while. You can always build up the time and intensity of your workouts as your fitness level improves over time. 3. Specific: Trying to "do your best" or "do better" is like trying to eat the hole in a donut. There's nothing there to chew on or digest. You need to define some very specific, concrete, and measurable action-steps that tell you what your goal looks like in real-life terms. Include how you will measure your results so you can tell whether you are getting anywhere. Example: If you want to get a handle on emotional eating and you've decided that keeping a journal may help, set aside scheduled time to do your writing each day; set up some specific changes in your behavior that you want this work to produce (like not eating after your last scheduled snack); and create a time interval and/or method to figure out whether your journaling is helping you reach that goal or not. 4. Time-limited: Goals need to come with deadlines, due dates, and payoff schedules. Otherwise, they'll fade into the background with your daily hubbub, and you'll quit playing the game. If your long-term goal is going to take a while to reach, create some intermediate- and short-term goals. These will make your larger goal seem less daunting and keep you focused on what you can do here and now to help yourself get there. Example: If your overall goal is to have the weight off in one year, make sure you set up some intermediate weight goals to serve as check points along the way. Otherwise, those small things you need to do every day, and the small successes

you achieve, can seem so insignificant compared to how much further you still have to go that you may lose interest. 5. Positive: Goals should always be framed in positive terms. Humans are not designed to white-knuckle their way through life, always trying to not do things or to avoid certain thoughts, feelings, actions or circumstances. We are much better at approaching what we DO want than avoiding what we don't want. Example: If you want to reduce the amount of junk food you eat, frame that goal in positive words like increasing the amount of calories you eat from healthy foods, and identifying which healthy foods you want to eat more. Instead of trying to eliminate chocolate treats, for example, plan a low-fat yogurt with fruit for your sweet snack. If you do this for a few weeks, your brain will disconnect the habitual association between treat and chocolate and make a new one with the yogurt and fruit. And youll be just as happy with this new treat! 6. Flexible: Good strategies and goals are always flexible, because nothing in this world stays the same for very long, and staying alive and on course means being able to adapt to changing circumstances. Example: You are always going to run into circumstances that make it difficult to stick to your diet or exercise planspecial occasions, unexpected schedule conflicts, even just a really hard day where you need a break from the routine for your mental health. Your goals should include some contingency plans for dealing with these problems so that you dont fall into that all-or-nothing thinking that lets one difficult situation become an excuse for ditching your whole plan. And remember, meeting your goals is 90% attitude. No one is perfect, and youre going to have days where you just dont do what you set out to. Make sure you build up some good stress management habits and tools to help you deal with those days without losing sight of your long-term goals, or losing your motivation.