"Make New Year's goals. Dig within, and discover what you would like to have happen in your life this year. This helps you do your part. It is an affirmation that you're interested in fully living life in the year to come"

 - Melody Beattie

Happy New Year fellow Steemians! May the universe bless you in surprising and joyful ways.

I think this is a very good moment to write the first article for the LifeHack Series. You can learn more about the Series from the Introduction post.

I can't think of a better topic for January 1st than Goal Setting. I think this is a great opportunity for all of us, just to sit and brainstorm. We should take a good look at the past year (or more) and clear our vision for the future. The effect from writing your goals, visualizing them and actually act on your list is incredible. You can find evidence for this in almost every self-help, motivational and success-related book you can get your hands on.

In this post you can find

• Why goal setting is important
• How I set goals for the year
• The most important part of Goal Setting

Why Goal Setting is important

• Motivates You
  Goal setting provides you the foundation for your drive. Goals are extremely useful when you are feeling down or unproductive - the list helps you remember how you felt, when you were in a positive state of mind. By making a goal you give yourself a concrete endpoint to aim for and get excited about.

• Optimism, Excitement and Self-Awareness
  These are the words that best describe the process of goal setting. You connect with the inner-self, in order to uncover your passions, dreams and wishes. This is a very intimate process, which gives you some time to re-think the way things are going and if necessary make adjustments and changes - it instantly makes you feel better for the future and gives you an energy boost.

• Laser Focus
  Helps you focus on major things and stop wasting time. When you take a look at your goal list, there is a much stronger incentive to concentrate and channel your energy to productive things, rather than social media and TV Shows.

• Measuring Progress
  Writing goals in the beginning of the year creates a certain benchmark for comparisons. It helps you track your progress and adjust if you need to, also if you don't see the results from your hard work, it means that you should change the approach.

• Accountability
  Yes, you are accountable, but only to YOURSELF. You have set the goals, it is your obligation to monitor for the achievement of the goals. You can easily track your goals, by having specific goals.

Certainly every individual will have various benefits from setting goals, but these are one of the more common ones.

How I set goals

• Put them in Categories
  I personally have Personal, Financial, Entrepreneurial and Educational goals.

• Write a draft and re-write them on a fresh piece of paper

• When I set a goal, I develop a strategy ( written below the goal) for the achievement of that goal.

• Have a good reasoning for doing things
  When you have a good reason to do something, giving up is not an option. If your goal is to work out three times per week and the reason is that you are overweight and you have health issues because of that, it gives you more motivation to just act !

• Set Measurable, Time-Bound and Specific goals.
  This will help you a lot, because when things are specific and time-bound, it is almost impossible to lie to yourself.

• Visualize your goals - think of it like you already achieved them

A very good proverb goes like

Aim at the Sun and shoot an eagle, aim at an eagle and hit a rock.

Action is Key

The goals you set, the passion and energy you invested and the motivational books you read will NOT matter, unless you actually ACT. Actually EXECUTING is the most essential part of it all - setting goals is great and gives you a very good head start, but doing stuff is the key for your success. I think that it is difficult to describe the importance of this, so let me use some help from Shia LaBeouf.

The most important part of Goal Setting

It is the first day of the best year of your life! It is absolutely up to YOU to make your life better and a happier place. All you need to do is to grab a pen, write what comes from within and ACT. Don't wait for tomorrow, because it might not come - live in the present and be EXCITED about the futre. You will definitely have setbacks and challenges, just remember what you were thinking today and how empowered you felt, when you decided to do the necessary thing rather than play FIFA or browse in Facebook.

I will be thrilled, if you share with me your thoughts in the comments!

If you want to make me feel good - Upvote, Follow and Re-Steem !