Goal Setting Activity

	Life Mission and Goal Setting Activity REMEMBER TYPE ALL ASSIGNMENTS AND MAKE A COPY FOR YOURSELF

	ASSIGNMENT: This is a take home activity that is due in class on April 20th, 1999. Bring to class your life mission and goals (5 each for family, career, personal development). List your goals in priority order. The process of developing clearly stated goals involves first getting in touch with some sense of a life purpose as a large framework within which to develop your goals. Secondly is to understand the difference between goals and activities, and learning how to state your goals in specific terms.

	Your Life Purpose - Your Mission Statement
	When a person gets a sense of a life purpose (mission), it can serve as a framework for all your short term and long-term goals for each major areas of your life. Takes some time to write out your purpose (mission) in life. The best way to identify you purpose (mission) is to use quiet times to reflect upon your core self. Clues to your life purpose may come through from that deep core self as loud, clear messages. They may come through as a series of quiet, subtle whispers. The key is to keep focusing and listening until you have some sense of the general direction your life should take. The clues will become the basis for your mission statement, which you will write as one or two clear brief sentences. This statement can be the underlying rationale for all the goals, activities, and priorities that you develop.

	Defining Specific Goals
	The term ``goal" as used here is synonymous with ``objective." Defined further: A goal is a specific end result you want by some stated point in time. Activities are things you do in order to achieve your goal. You may enjoy an activity, but that doesn't make it a goal There may be a variety of feasible and acceptable activities that can help you reach your goal. Activities are a means to an end. The end is a goal. Make your goals specific and not vague: Specific means observable and measurable.

Vague Goals	Specific Goals
To make more money	To earn $30,000 a year by June 20, 2000
To move up in the company	To be General Manager of a regional branch by June 2001
To get ahead in life	To have a net worth of $100,000 by January 2010
To go back to school	To have an MBA degree by June 2000
To have more free time	To have one month of paid vacation per year by June 2003
To travel more	To travel to Vietnam & see my family in 1999 for three weeks


	ASSIGNMENT: Mission and Goal statement

	Step 1: Write your PERSONAL MISSION STATEMENT (life purpose) in one sentence. Step 2: Keeping in mind that a goal is a specific end result, list you five most important goals for each of the three areas of FAMILY (the kind you want to have), CAREER (the one you want to have), and PERSOAL DEVELOPMENT (your schooling). List goals in priority order, the top priority first. Step 3: Strengthening and clarifying your goals.

	VISUALIZE END RESULTS: During a quiet time, relax and visualize yourself living the end result of each goal. Focus on what you are doing, having, and most of all being; that is how you feel, how other feel, how relationships are affected. Note any conflicting feelings or thoughts that come up - thoughts about barriers to achieving the goal or about payoffs for not achieving it. CHECK THE SOURCE OF EACH GOAL: Are you sure this is your goal? It is very important to establish this. If you are trying to achieve a goal because someone else thinks you should, you can never give it the full level of commitment, passion, and enthusiasm you give to goals that come form deep within you. The achievement of others' goals can never bring you the joy and fulfillment you deserve, and you will never reach the same level or quality of success as you will with your own goals. So analyze each important goal in their light. Have you chose this goal because it's what you think someone else would admire? For example, a parent figure, spo8se, influential friend, teacher? Or is it truly what you want in your life? APPLY THE ENERGY/EMOTIONAL LEVEL TEST: If you have difficulty ranking a goal - or if at one point in the goal-setting or goal-implementing process, you are pulled between two alternatives - try the following analysis: First, be sure you have developed an adequate foundation for making the decision, though self- analysis of your life purpose and deepest desires and gathering the information you need. Then ask yourself the following questions: Do if feel energized when I think of a particular choice? Do I sense a drop in my energy level when I think of the choice? Which option has a special glow around it when I picture it? An emotional attraction? Then ask yourself, if the decision were based solely on emotion, which alternative would I choose? You will probably experience the greatest success when you go for the alternative that energizes you and brings up positive feelings, such as a sense of freedom, well-being, growth/expansion or enthusiasm. Credit to: Dr. Norma Carr-Ruffino, Professor, College of Business, SFSU Author: The Promotable Woman: Advancing Through Leadership Skills.