Lawyers Assistance Program Facilitated by Robert Bircher Balanced Goal Setting Lawyers Assistance Program Facilitated by Robert Bircher

Effectiveness of Goal Setting Most Lawyers know goal setting is important but few actually use goals effectively This is due to the fact many classic goal setting methods rely on will power and don’t take into account that people resist change-often vigorously I belong to a goal setting group that has done goal setting for 20 years and this method seems to work the best-because it doesn’t fight human nature

Multidimensional Goal Setting Life has many dimensions and many people want balance in their life-thus setting goals in all areas of life is necessary However since you can only complete a few things at once what seems to work is to focus on 1 or 2 dimensions at a time-then move on to the next one-or drop one and move on to one you are more motivated to do

Wheel of Life You will find a wheel of life attached-filling this in shows where you are in or out of balance On each dimension mark an ark where you are now-then one where you would like to be-there may be no difference in some areas or a large gap in others-color the areas differently so the differences are clear The gap is the space between the two lines and you put down what would need to change for you to achieve your goal

Wheel of life For example you may believe you need to lose 10 pounds to achieve your health outcome-you would write that in the gap area Basically you do this for all dimensions-some may need a lot of change-some none at all We have found out many things about goal setting that you won’t see in the textbook methods-mainly because the authors haven’t actually followed these methods!!

Goal Chart Your goal does not have to be precise, in fact a vision or wish works better-ie “I want to look good for my age”-is vague but will work at this point-in fact a general dream may be the most effective goal you can write! You can even simply put a direction in here-”I want more peace in my life” This puts into motion an intention or direction to your life

Outcome This is the part where you put the experience you are looking for-this is best described as a feeling –not a fact-ie- “I look good in my clothes and am not self conscious about my weight’ is a feeling statement rather than- “I will weigh 190 pounds by x date” Feeling statements are more effective than fact statements-in fact you can use only feeling words or visions and they seem to work better than thoughts

Timeline Goals are dreams with deadlines-a date is useful but some flexibility is useful here as well-ie by the end of the summer We have found that some goals are not achieved in the timeline we predicted-but over time they often are We used to have a rule that a goal could only be put down twice-if it wasn’t achieved we thought it wasn’t important enough-but over time they tended to happen

Miracles Never Cease We found over time that many goals seemed to be achieved without much or any effort at all-we call these effortless goals Some goals are the opposite-very effortful! In some cases great achievements were made when no goal at all was made In some cases a goal was repeated for many years with little success –in some cases was never ever achieved

Miracles Never Cease It seems that the reason for these anomalies was that intention-if strong and genuine enough- seems to manifest with or without you!! Also we began to realize that serendipity played a large role-there are so many unforeseen events in life, goals can manifest in minutes(You meet the person of your dreams)or life can change in minutes ( someone dies unexpectedly ) It helps to review your goals to make sure you are conscious of them-also to look at ways you could manifest them

Goal Setting Tips Your intention is more important than what you say you will do-great precision is unnecessary and may actually get in your way Striving, stressing your self and focusing on achievement is somewhat useful in “effortful goals” but in general is useless or actually makes things worse It works to focus on only one or two goals at once and it does work to make goals easy and achievable Our group has tried dozens of methods and systems and over 20 years this is the most effective method