 We've all got a bunch of things in our list that we want to get done. Today we're going to show you how to turn those things on your to-do list into actionable goals that you can achieve. Welcome back, leaders, and congratulations on taking one more step towards becoming one of the great leaders of tomorrow. As I mentioned in the intro, there's a difference between writing a bunch of things down on our to-do list and having goals that we're really trying to achieve. And setting goals effectively is the first step towards building a plan of action that we can follow to help us reach those goals. If you want to write effective goals, there are three things to keep in mind. Every good goal is clear, measurable, and achievable. Let's break each one of those down. Making a goal clear means being descriptive and specific when you're writing a goal about what it is you're trying to achieve. Saying that you want to lose weight or get in shape is not very clear, it's not very descriptive or specific. Saying that you want to lose 5 pounds or 10 pounds is much more descriptive and specific and therefore clear. Being measurable is all about how you'll know when you've reached your goal and how close you are to reaching it right now. Raising money is a really good example. You know how much money you need and you can count how much you have right now. The last component of writing an effective goal is that it needs to be achievable. And this is an often overlooked part of setting goals. I highly encourage you to be ambitious when you're setting your goals, but they do need to be achievable if they're going to be effective. Standing on the top of Mount Everest is an ambitious but achievable goal. Standing on the surface of the sun is probably not achievable. Sometimes if you've got a big goal that you're trying to achieve, it's effective to break that big goal into smaller goals or objectives, especially if meeting the big goal or require a good deal of self-discipline. For example, if you want to get your room cleaned by Friday, maybe it makes sense to make a goal of cleaning out the closet by Tuesday, picking up all the dirty clothes off the floor on Wednesday, and then vacuuming on Thursday. If the goal you're trying to achieve is affected by a lot of variables, you might want to reframe that goal into something that you have a little more direct control over. So going back to our example of losing 5 pounds, that's a goal that's clear, measurable, and achievable, but it's also affected by a lot of different variables like exercise, diet, and sleep. And it might make more sense to go reframe that goal into, I'm going to go run 3 miles 5 days a week, which is also clear, measurable, and achievable, but takes away some of the other variables and really focuses on the exercise piece as the goal. A lot of people like to put a timeline or a deadline on their goals. And sometimes that makes sense, and sometimes it doesn't. Let's go back to our example where we were trying to raise money. Maybe there's a charity event that you want to present that money at on a certain day, and so you would put a deadline on raising the amount of money that you want to achieve so you can present it at the event. Also, looking at our example of trying to lose 5 pounds, because of the variables we talked about that affect how quickly you can lose that 5 pounds, you might not want to put a timeline on this event to keep you from getting frustrated, but what you may want to do is make a commitment to reevaluate your goal once you've lost that 5 pounds and determine what your next steps are. If you've written a goal that you're really proud of, post it in the comments so everyone can see it. And if you have some questions, contact us. We'll help you make those goals clear, measurable, and achievable. Check back later in the week. We're going to have a post that talks about what to do with these goals once you've written them. And the best way to get to that is clicking that globe off to the right. That'll get you on our email list and bring that blog post directly to your inbox. I want to thank you for coming today and watching. I really appreciate it. And remember, the future is out there. Lead the way.