Setting and Achieving Goals Using SWOT Analysis

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Your odds for setting and achieving goals increases when you conduct a SWOT analysis - a strategic planning model used to assess strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats to personal goal setting. Primarily, this technique is used by Businesses, but can provide a tremendous advantage for anyone serious about achievement.

Proactively identifying threats and weaknesses helps you to plan smarter. This helps you strategize for overcoming challenges and threats to achieving your goals. Better yet, this type of analysis can really help build momentum for faster achievement. How does this work?

Simply Pay Attention To and Write Down What You Already Know

You assess internal factors such as your own skill sets, knowledge, thinking, motivation, and readiness and label them as strengths - attributes that will help in the achievement of your goals or as weaknesses - attributes that are harmful to the achievement of your goals.

Next, you assess external factors such as time constraints due to a job, or that extra hour you can find in the morning if you have a reason to use it. Or, how about lack of money or a significant other who does not support your goal? You will label each as either an opportunity - which is a condition that will help you in the achievement of your goal or as a threat - which are conditions that damage, or prevent the achievement of your goal.

Start With the End in Mind

You start by determining what it is you want to achieve. I strongly recommend you use the SMART goals strategy first. Once you have established your goals you need to conduct your SWOT Analysis. You have to look at where you are now (skill sets, available time, finances, personal conflicts, etc... in comparison to where you want to be.

Learn how to conduct a SWOT Analysis.
Use the SWOT analysis tool to determine your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

Ask Yourself the Crucial Questions

Once you are finished with your list and labeling each item, simply ask yourself the following questions:

How can you improve or compensate for weaknesses?
How can you take advantage of opportunities?
How can you stabilize or eliminate the threats?

Once you have completed your SWOT Analysis, you should reassess your setting and achieving goals strategy. Is there any goals you want to change? More importantly, you may not want to change goals, but you may want to revise measurements. For example, your analysis might show you will need an extra month to accomplish your goal due to money constraints.

The beauty of this process is you can maintain motivation, because you are working from a realistic plan which takes into consideration challenges and threats. After you've completed your analysis and make necessay adjustments you should be positioned to achieve your goals and experience success.

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