However, two days later rain is forecast and the temperatures are in the 50's! It might be an easy winter for us but in the long run this is not good for our Earth.
How's the weather in your part of the world? Typical or out of the ordinary? You may want to think about what small steps you, as well as the rest of us, can take to advocate for the care of our planet.
It also depends on the length of the goals you want to choose. Some folks set goals for the year, others for a month and even shorter periods of time.
If the goal is small then a shorter time period is good. For instance, if you goal is to reorganize your office or studio then you can choose a shorter time period. Take a good look at your office/studio and calculate how much time you may need to reorganize, then double that time.
If you think you can do it in a week, make the goal two weeks. If you finish before the goal time, great. But most of us under-estimate how much and how fast we can do things. Also, you don't want to do a less than great job just to make the goal deadline.
If your goal is a big one that will take the entire year or more, then dividing the goal into smaller monthly steps is good. Maybe you want to get out of credit card debt, or save for a down payment for a home, setting monthly steps toward the overall goal will encourage you to keep up your interest and involvement.
If you have to wait for the entire year to achieve your goal, interest and enthusiasm can easily be decreased to the point where you no longer even try to be successful.
How many goals should you undertake? Well, that's completely up to you. However, if you want goal setting to work, you need to think about the reality of what you can focus on and accomplish. Being successful in reaching your goal(s) is important. So you need to make sure that the goals you choose to undertake are possible for you to work toward.
Let's say that you have 22 goals both long and short terms on your list, now it's time to choose those that are really important. The choice to do all of them is usually very strong but after consideration of all that those goals entailed, a better decision is to undertake fewer than all 22 goals.
One way to handle short term goals is to have several ready to go throughout the year. Say you want to organize specific areas of your home, or undertake a course of interest. Schedule those throughout the year when achieving them is at the best time in your calendar. In this case, you can have several goals one after another but it would be best not to overlap these goals time periods.
For the larger goals, concentrating on fewer is better than, again, trying to do them all. Three long term goals is probably a good choice. You can do more but if you feel that your enthusiasm or interest has decreased, then it would be better to reassess and perhaps drop as many as needed to be able to concentrate on your highest priority goal.
So, today make your choices as to what goals you want to pursue. We will consider next how to set those goals.
Talk with you tomorrow...