How to set realistic goals

Setting Realistic Goals

One of the biggest mistakes people make when they are bettering themselves is set goals that are too hard to achieve. Goals are very important because they will allow you to be all that you can be, but when you set goals that are too lofty, you can be setting yourself up for failure. This is why it is so important that when you set goals, you set goals that you can achieve not too easily, but not too difficulty either.

An example of this is to say that you want to develop yourself personally by losing 100 pounds in a month. Well, you cannot do this without getting surgery and surgery is often the easy way out and will not allow you to keep the weight off. This is an unrealistic goal. However, if you set a goal of losing 100 pounds in a year and a half, then you are creating a goal that is achievable, but not too easy. If you set a goal of losing 100 pounds in 10 years, you are not challenging yourself enough.

Goals will help as guide posts for your journey to becomi8ng a better person. You will be able to use your goals to determine how you are going to better yourself and the achieving of those goals will show you that you are making progress.

To ensure you do not set goals that are unrealistic, you should do the following:

1. Make a list of things you can do right now, without much money and with ample time available.

2. Looking at that list, determine what can be done sooner rather than later, and then sort the items on the list in terms of when they can be done.

3. At this point, ask yourself each time you read a goal whether you think it is realistic or not. Saying that 100 pounds in six months is not realistic is not cheating; it is being real with yourself.

4. Based on the answers you give for each question, adjust your goals accordingly so that you can ensure you have created goals that you will be able to achieve without having to set yourself up for failure.

One of the biggest reasons people fail in their goals is that they set themselves up for failure. Running a marathon is a great goal, but if you have never run a marathon before and plan to next weekend, you are only setting yourself up to fail at that task. As a result, you will want to ensure that you make that goal realistic because then when you achieve it, you will feel that much better at your accomplishment.

Goals are one of the most important things to have for yourself, and they will show you that you are doing well with bettering yourself. Talk with people about your goals and ask them whether they think they are realistic. They may say they are not, but that does not mean you have to listen to them. The only person you must listen to is yourself.

To streamline and minimize blog maintenance, I will be discontinuing maintaining the Simplepersonaldevelopment.com website (however, I will still hold the domain). I will gradually move all articles from this site to Ahmed Dawn Dot Com. This article originally published on the above website on July 25, 2010.

MoviePix MP5A4 HD 720P Video Camcorder Review

MoviePix MP5A4 HD Camera Review

First Published: June 28, 2009 ADawnJournal.com

Ever since I wrote Flip UltraHD And MoviePix MP5A4 HD Digital Video Camera post, I have been getting lots of questions regarding my MoviePix HD video camera. Lots of readers asked whether to buy a Flip UltraHD or a MoviePix HD cam. Today, I am writing a quick comparison Review showing the main differences between these two cameras. After looking at this comparison table below, you should have a good idea of what to pick.

MoviePix MP5A4 HD

1280 x 720

up to 60 fps

4X

2.7”

8 MP

Li-ion rechargeable battery 2.5 hours

Camcorder connects to your computer via USB cable

SD memory slot allows up to 32GB of storage

USB, AV & HDTV Component output jacks allow to connect it directly to HD TV

Mov

148 gms

In Canada: $127 C$ In USA: $147 US$

Flip UltraHD

1280 x 720

up to 30 fps

2X

2.0”

Can’t take still pictures

rechargeable NiMH AA batteries 2.5 hours. Can use standard AA alkaline batteries as well.

Camcorder connects directly to the USB port on your computer.

8GB internal memory

HDMI output on the side for HDTV connections, but no bundled cable

MP4

170 gms

In Canada: $299 C$ In USA: $199 US$

Watch A View From My Balcony I Shot On MoviePix Video Camera In HD

The Importance of a Strong Support Group

Strong Support Group Is Important

When you are planning to better yourself and go through a personal development change, something you need, beyond confidence, is a strong support group. A strong support group will help you make the changes you need in your life because they will be able to tell you what you may not be doing right, what you need to change and they will keep you on the path to becoming a better person.

Your support group does exactly what the name suggests, they support you. They tell you that you can do it, they push you to better yourself and they are there for you when you need them. Support groups are found in many different things including groups like Alcoholics Anonymous, who have a strong support system for their members to lean on.

You can work on this same principle with your own support group who will guide you and keep you on the path to bettering yourself. Your support group can come in many different varieties. You can talk with people who have gone through the same thing and use their experience to help you. If you want to lose weight, talk with people who have done so because they will know all the pitfalls that you can get into and they will ensure that you do not fall off the path. However, you can also go closer to home and use your family as a support group. Your family will want you to be a better person, and they will be happy to help you achieve that. Whether it is your parents, siblings, cousins, grandparents, children, or your spouse, you can use them as a support group because in the end you are bettering yourself personally for them. You can also talk with your friends because your friends often know you best and will help you better yourself as a person. They will be able to support you when you need it because that is what a friend is for. Additionally, you can talk with co-workers because you spend 40 hours a week with them and they will help you when you are not near your friends or your family. Your co-workers will often be happy to aid you in bettering yourself.

A support group is something that will give you confidence, tell you what you need to hear and keep you going towards being a better person. They will be the people who you talk to and who talk to you, when you are working to develop yourself personally. It will not always be easy when you are going through personal development, for you or your support group, but in the end everyone will be stronger for the journey. Any type of personal development journey is difficult, especially when you go alone, so why not just use the help of a support group to give you a helping hand on the journey? It is not cheating; it is using what is available to you for success.

A Global Recovery Without Growth

OECD Expects A Period Of Stunted Growth Over The Course Of 2010

First Published: ADawnJournal.com Published Date : July 1, 2009

The good news first, so no-one loses hope: Next year will see, in Canada and the rest of the industrial world, an economic recovery from the recession we currently find ourselves in. Now, the bad news: there will be little or no growth in the economy as part of this recovery. So says the global Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development in a report published this week which will leave many people wondering whether to smile or frown. The general consensus has been that the recession is heading for an end later this year with a cautious but pronounced period of growth next year. The Bank of Canada for its part claims that growth may even reach 2.5%, but the OECD thinks differently.

This report seems to be more pessimistic in general than the assumptions of the World Bank, with the OECD expecting a period of stunted growth over the course of 2010 which will see the Canadian economy grow by a small margin of 0.7%, lower than the USA’s figure of 0.9% and the world in general at 2.3%. The World Bank, which does not have a breakdown for Canada, expects the US to have growth of 1.8%. Things could be worse of course as, according to the OECD, the United Kingdom will experience no growth at all. It should also be noted that the OECD forecast is just one of many, and the most pessimistic of them all so far – forecasts certainly do not always reflect the eventual truth.

What does seem universally accepted is the belief that the latter part of this year will see an end to the market contraction which has characterized 2009. Aside from that, it is difficult to know what to believe, with market figures completely failing to provide a uniform indicator of how the future will pan out. Goods and retail purchases have been rising in Canada and above, for example, but the housing market, particularly in the United States, has failed to perform as well as had been hoped. Reading the trends is likely to remain a lottery for some time to come, although news that the recession is soon to be over will hopefully become a self-fulfilling prophecy, with consumer confidence expected to grow as a result.

On the last point, the OECD and the World Bank seem at least to be of one mind. The global recession does not have long to run, whichever way you read the figures. OECD member countries have seen market contraction in the region of 4.1%, expected to be the overall figure for this year. In March, this figure was estimated at 4.3%. Given the horrors of 2008 and much of this year, the recession was inevitable, but it looks to be nearing its end. Economic strategists seem to be of a single mind on stimulus packages too, giving the concept a cautious thumbs up, urging that the governments implement the programs included under those packages, and advising against further action to pump economies up once recovery does appear – correction is good, micro-management may be detrimental.

How to Create a Bucket List to Improve Your Life

Make a Bucket List to Improve Your Life

Personal development is about creating something more than yourself. When you develop yourself personally, you will build upon yourself and improve yourself. This means going out of your element and doing things you may not have thought doing, but always hoped that you would. This is why the concept of a bucket list is so important to personal development. With a bucket list, you are creating a list that will help you improve yourself because you are going through the things that you want to do in your life before you ‘kick the bucket’.  To create a proper bucket list, one that will not disappoint you or be counter-productive, you should do the following to make your bucket list the best possible:

1. You may want to write your bucket list all at once, but you do not need to do this. Write down the first few things can be written right away but keep your bucket list with you at all times because over time you will think of new things that you want to do.

2. Don’t just pick the normal things that everyone picks, like ‘See Paris’. Think outside the box and choose things that are a bit more interesting. Riding a motorbike down the Great Wall of China is a good example of this.

3. Look at the list of others to see what interests them and what they may want to do. You may find that you also want to do those things.

4. Put things on your list that you can accomplish right now, at a low cost, like learning a language, while also making some things easier to achieve than others. If all your list items are very hard to do, you will only get discouraged. That being said, only putting easy things on your list will make it not worthwhile for you to do.

5. Put your bucket list up on the internet because this will make you accountable to the people who see the list. They will both help you and push you to do your bucket list and they will keep you on the path to accomplishing the things that you want. It is like an audience watching you and making sure you do what you have promised to do.

6. Probably the most important thing you can do is to make your bucket list something that is fun. If it is all serious, you won’t enjoy it and the most important thing about personal development is enjoying the person you are becoming and what you are doing. That is why you want to make your bucket list fun, so that you are always looking forward to what you are going to be doing in the future on the list.

A bucket list is something that is very important when you want to develop yourself personally and make yourself a better person. So begin today to make yourself a better person with your own personal bucket list.