Setting Personal Goals:
Success Starts With You

As a nonprofit leader (paid or volunteer) setting personal goals is a great benefit to you and to the organization (for setting organizational goals go here. Your time is valuable. Unfortunately, it is very easy to get sidetracked or caught up in time consuming tasks that do not advance your personal or organizational goals.

Make goals fun – throw in a couple that are just for pleasure. Like committing to a weekly manicure or a morning run. And reward yourself. In fact, you can tie a reward to every personal goal you set.

Do you write your goals down? Putting it on paper (or on file) helps you express what it is you want and it makes it more of a commitment. There is a very good book by Henriette Anne Klauser, Write It Down, Make It Happen: Knowing What You Want and Getting It, that establishes a case for writing down what you want.

Try this little exercise
Measure how you are using your time. We've created a great calendar for you to use. Just write "send me a calendar" and we will send the Excel file to you. or order a Busy Body Book (a great calendar/organizer!) to track your work for a week.

Head each column with a major function of your work (or life). Record your meetings, phone calls etc. in the appropriate column daily. At the end of each work day, mark the number of hours you have spent working in each of those five categories. At the end of the week add them up. How well does your use of time correlate with your priorities?

OK with Setting Personal Goals? Back to Planning