Tag Archives: Goal setting 101

Covid-19 Ireland Update & Goal Setting Course.

I hope you are keeping well wherever you are in the world. I am going to get to the goal setting course later in this blog post but first I want to give you my Covid-19 update.

As I write this I am under lock-down in Ireland due to the Covid-19 Pandemic. We are now heading into our 11th week since the schools and colleges closed on Thursday March 12th. Our national holiday celebrations on St. Patrick’s Day, 17th March were cancelled. On March 27th, Ireland was placed on full lock-down with all non-essential journeys banned for two weeks. Of course the lock-down was extended and as I write this (May 24th 2020) we are still under lock-down. Easter celebrations were cancelled. We stayed at home for two bank holiday weekends in May and June. Bars, restaurants, hotels, churches, sporting clubs and activities etc were closed/cancelled. The Irish government required us not to leave our homes except for essential journeys such as to buy food or medicine. We were allowed only exercise within 2kms of our homes.

Is this really happening?

When I reflect back on what I have outlined above it all seems surreal and like something from a novel or a film script. Restrictions are starting to be eased gradually. For example we can now travel up to 5km from our homes to exercise. More shops have been allowed to re-open such as hardware stores. We are currently on a pathway to a phased re-opening of the country over the next few months provided the virus does not re-surge.

Those less fortunate

On a personal level I have been fortunate to date in that I still have work and my children can still continue their education using digital platforms while the schools and colleges are closed. I am also very conscious that we are far more fortunate in Ireland than in many other less well off parts of the world because we have government supports such as income support, if needed, to help us as we are confined to our homes. In less developed parts of the world people have been under lock-down without even food/income (parts of India for example). In other countries the lock-down has been brutal with people being beaten and shot dead in some African countries (e.g. Kenya and Nigeria). For millions of people around the world the pandemic has so far brought death, sickness, hunger, poverty and lost earnings, business failure and stress. My sympathy goes to all those affected by the pandemic so far.

None of us know what is around the corner but I think it is important that we all do our best now to set goals around self-education, building new skills for the future and preparing for a world changed by this pandemic.

My Goal Setting Course Update

I just want to you give an update on my new goal setting course which I have now completed (finally!) and which is live on the Udemy platform. The lock-down is a great time for you to get crystal clear your own life’s purpose, the direction you want to take into the future and the skills your need to acquire. This is a great time to build new skills but you must be clear on what you want first and who you want to become. You then need to know how to set great goals to take you from where you are now to where you want to be.

Free goal setting course

Course description

Many people set goals and perhaps you also set goals for yourself. The question is how effective are those goals? How compelling and inspiring are your goals? What is your success rate on goal achievement? According to U.S. News & World Report, the failure rate for New Year’s resolutions is said to be about 80 percent, and most give up on their new year goals by mid-February. The good news is that effective goal setting is a learned skill that we can all acquire and improve upon. None of us can afford to take goal setting for granted. This course will show you how to set compelling and life transforming goals that will bring out the very best in you and take you life in a new and exciting direction of your own choosing. You have the power to make your life whatever you want it to be through effective goal setting. This course is action orientated and by the end of the course you will have set up to three key long term goals to propel your own life forward in new and exciting directions. Don’t wait until new year to set effective goals. You can set goals any time of year. Also don’t assume that you know everything about goal setting already. Even experienced goal setters can benefit by renewing and constantly refining their goal setting skills.

Enroll Now

You are welcome now to enroll on my Goal Setting course . I would appreciate if you leave a review of the course and and if possible you could send me some feedback on what you liked and what could be improved etc.

As for myself I have already started work on my next course. A change of tack this time as I return to another favourite topic of mine: beekeeping. In fact it’s a wonderful time of year to be making that course because it gets me out into nature and I am enjoying every minute. That is as might be expected because course creation is aligned with my own personal hedgehog concept or ikigai. If you want to find out what I mean by that please enroll for the course!

Stay safe and well.

Tom

PS Please also check out my other course which is very relevant to this blog post – Future Skills 2030 – Prepare for the 4th Industrial Revolution. Start planning today for the skills you need to stay relevant in this fast changing world. Special offer $13.00 – Offer Expires 06/24/2020 04:06 AM PDT (GMT -7)

“The future depends on what you do today. “

Mahatma Ghandi

Goal setting 101: How to Set and Achieve Goals

At the moment I am working on developing a new online course on goal setting. The title of the course is ‘Goal setting 101: How to Set and Achieve Goals’. My goal is to complete the course and publish it by the end of September 2019 [stay tuned for further updates!]. I am very much enjoying working on this goal because I am taking the opportunity to refresh my own knowledge on goal setting, reflect on my goal setting experiences as well and review and update my own goals. Currently I have three goals. I recommend setting no more than three goals at a time because I find that if I have too many goals then I become torn between different goals and end up achieving very little. I like to focus on one to three big and challenging goals at a time.

Why Goal Setting?

Goal setting is a topic which has interested me all my life. I have been setting goals since I was a kid. Reflecting back on goals that I have set in the past they have a tendency to come to fruition. However not necessarily in the way that I intended them to happen. The planning fallacy is a constant challenge. In short the planning fallacy is where we tend to underestimate the resources and time needed to achieve a goal and overestimate the benefits of achieving the same goal. We can spend years chasing a goal. Imagine how disappointing it is to finally achieve a goal only to find out that it was all a waste of time and you should have focused your time, energy and resources elsewhere! This is why we need to be careful about the goals we set for ourselves and also to be ready to drop them and pivot if something better comes along.

Watch out for my forthcoming course launch towards the end of September 2019!

Quarter 4 – 2019

By the way this is a good time of the year to be thinking of your goals. At the end of September we will be starting the last quarter of 2019. Did you set goals for the year ahead in January? How has the year gone for you? Are you on track to achieving the goals you set for yourself at the beginning of the year? Don’t worry if things haven’t worked out as well as you expected. If you hit the ground running in the last quarter of the year you can certainly turn things around and make 2019 a year to remember!

“Goals. There’s no telling what you can do when you get inspired by them. There’s no telling what you can do when you believe in them. And there’s no telling what will happen when you act upon them.”

Jim Rohn

Keep an eye out for my forthcoming course launch. In the meantime I am giving away a limited number of free copies of my audio-book ‘Experiments in Personal Change’ on audible. If you would like a free review copy please email me for the promo code tcarroll@lifeisalaboratory.com The audio book is packed full of life changing tips and you might even use some of the ideas in the book to inspire your last quarter goals 2019.

Best Wishes,

Tom