If you shoot for the moon and miss, you'll be floating out in space for forever.

My Dad is what I would call a true professional at goal setting. He is GOOD; back in his day as Bishop he would give a fireside every year on how to make effective goals. I thought I'd share some of his wisdom.

Before February.

There are 5 rules to effective goal setting, or "3 Rs, M, D":
(You can see where my spelling expertise came from)

1. Realistic - It has to be a goal that you can truly see yourself reaching, or you won't push yourself to reach it.
2. Reviewed Daily - If you're not looking at it every day, you will often forget about the goal. It needs to be at least in the back of your mind almost always.
3. (w)Ritten Down - This is similar to rule #2; it's easy to forget goals that you don't have down in stone.
4. Measurable - You have to be able to judge your own progress and the success of your goal. "I want to be a more grateful person" is not something you can measure, but "I'm going to say 'thank-you' every time somebody does something nice to me" is.
5. Deadline - The day by which you want to have accomplished your goal.

Be careful when setting goals that depend on the actions of other people. You should never beat yourself up over not accomplishing a goal, but be especially careful about not being hard on yourself for goals that other people influence. For example, if my goal was to win a basketball championship by the end of the year, I could practice every day and become incredibly good at basketball, but it's still up to the rest of my team.

Also, be careful about who you share your goals with. While some people might encourage your and help you along, others might be a little on the teasing side. There you go, the first truly helpful blog post I have created (and quite possibly the last). Now it's time for me to take my own advice and set some solid goals for 2009.