Good goal setting doesn’t require genius level intelligence.  A common sense approach will take me anywhere I want to go.  I already possess the skills necessary to set long-term, intermediate-term, and short-term goals.  My goals should be big enough to strongly attract me and small enough that their attainment is possible.  No hard and fast rules apply to the techniques of goal setting.  If I do a good job of setting them, I feel their motivating power.  If I do a poor job, they instill a sense of dread. 

Powerful goals do more than provide direction; they also energize and excite me.  They are music to my ears, and I love to listen to them all day long.  They get me up in the morning and start me marching through the day.  When the going gets tough, they help me keep on keeping on.  Goals are wonderful as long as I keep them in perspective.  As long as I don’t fall in love with them and believe my life will be perfect when I attain them, they serve a useful purpose.  Goals are only an aiming point; the journey is the important thing.  During it, I became a different person with different beliefs.  What I became is the important thing.  My goals were only places I visited on my journey to becoming all that I can be.

Excerpt from :

Maximum Strength Positive Thinking : What to Say When You Talk to Your Mind

David J Abbott M.D.