Whether it's business related or personal, setting goals sounds great. Achieving them sounds even better. But for most people, goal setting is akin to announcing New Year's resolutions. They are quickly uttered or set and almost as quickly broken or discarded. The reason most goals (and resolutions) fail is simple--if you don't take the time to determine and set the right goals for you and if you aren't properly motivated to achieve those goals, they are predestined to fail. Here's how to set the right goals and motivate yourself to really achieve them.

Envision the Result Before You Set Your Goals

Dream about what you want the end result to be. Whether you want to have a fit, svelte body or a successful business, a new home or a retirement fund or a published novel or something in between, dream about what it will be like to achieve that result. Truly imagine it in your mind as if it were real. Consider what your life will be like and how it will be different from your life today.

Determine how you will feel if you achieve this dream. In addition to the satisfaction of achieving the dream, think about specific feelings you think having this dream come true will elicit for you. Perhaps the feeling will be confidence, feeling accepted by your area's business community, peace and contentment, security or notoriety. This exercise will help you realize that your dream is more about the feelings you will experience in achieving the dream than the significance of the dream itself. It's those particular feelings that you really crave.

Consider--and write out--the pros and cons of achieving this dream. Many people become enamored of a dream without stopping to realize that the realization of the dream--like anything else in life--will have both pros and cons. It won't merely be a completely positive achievement. The reality is, there will be down sides. People who don't stop to think about the cons may go on to achieve their dream and then become depressed or incredibly disappointed. You can help avoid those negative feelings by considering the cons before you invest in the effort it will take to achieve the dream.

Brainstorm other ways that you can achieve the feelings you want to have without necessarily realizing the entire dream. Think about alternatives to the original dream that might create the feelings you want without the cons. Think outside the box and keep your mind open to all possibilities. Write them down.

Weigh the pros and cons of achieving the original dream and the feelings you will generate by achieving the dream against the alternatives you came up with and the pros and cons the alternatives present. Think about what it will take to achieve the original dream and contrast that to the effort required to achieve one of the alternatives instead. Look for ways to achieve the feelings you desire in the simplest possible way.

Write out the vision you decide to pursue in specific detail. For instance, a fit, svelte body may mean one thing to one person and something entirely different to someone else. The same is true of a successful business. You need to quantify or get specific about your dream and your vision. Perhaps a fit, svelte body means you will be a size 8, you will have less than 30 percent body fat and you will be able to run one mile without stopping or collapsing at the end from exhaustion. Your vision of a successful business may include hiring employees to work the weekends so you can have your weekends off, netting $60,000 annual income after expenses as a take-home wage for you and your family to live on, expanding your business to include a second store or something entirely different. You need to list the specifics so you know what your goals will be helping you to achieve.You will refer to this often in the future. Think of it as your destination.

Describe--and write down--your life as it is now and specifically how that differs from the dream or vision you desire. If you want to get to your destination, you must first determine exactly where you are. Only then can you decide the best means of getting there and map out your route.

Identify and Set Goals to Achieve the Vision

Identify the steps you will need to complete to achieve your vision. Write them down. For example, if you want a fit body, you will need to exercise. If you want to run a mile without stopping, you will first need to be able to walk a mile without stopping. This process will create the map that helps you get from where you are now to your destination. These are the milestones you will need to achieve. These are your goals. Even if you will be working toward more than one goal simultaneously, write each goal down individually and number your goals. If your dream is far away, you can have more goals or milestones on your path to achieving it. But if your dream is something you want to accomplish in a short timeframe, be sure you don't have too many goals that must be met to get to your destination.

Reassess your dream/vision or the time frame for the achievement of your dream as needed based upon the steps you identified that need to be completed. Rewrite your dream as needed to make it truly do-able. There is nothing worse than trying to accomplish goals--and realize a dream--that is simply not realistic or plausible. Make sure your goals are truly goals. Make sure they are something you can actually achieve.

Be sure your goals are something you can personally control. For instance, you may dream of publishing a novel, but your goals should be something you can control such as writing a certain number of words each week or submitting written book proposals to a specific number of editors each month.

Identify a measurement tool you can use to chart your progress as you achieve your goals and move toward your dream. If you can't measure something, you can't really tell if you are getting closer or not. Just as progress toward a destination is measured in miles or kilometers, you must be able to measure your progress. It might be in pounds or inches lost, the length of time it takes you to walk and later run a mile, the reduction in the percentage of your body fat, net income on your federal income tax returns from your business, number of customers or how many hours you need to work to keep your business profitable.

Make Yourself Accountable

Determine how often you will measure your progress toward each goal. Select intervals that are consistent and regular such as once a week, once a month or once every three months. Mark these "check up" dates on your calendar or planner. Create a chart that shows where you are now as the baseline, your dream or vision as the finish line and your means of measuring progress in even increments on the chart so you can plot your progress on the chart. Hang this chart where you can see it every day. Do this for each goal.

Find someone you trust to share your goals with. Ask that person to be your accountability partner. An accountability partner is someone you can answer to in addition to yourself. This person often helps keep you on track, working toward your goals and vision, is a person you can brainstorm with or talk to when challenges arise and you need to take a detour to get closer to your destination and is someone who will check in with you regularly at the identified intervals to be sure you are measuring your progress toward each goal and plotting it on your chart.

Identify (and list) some specific actions you can take to help you begin working toward the achievement of at least one of your goals every single day. Small or large, you need to take actions that bring you at least a baby step closer to realizing your goals if you ever want to get there. Think like the tortoise in the story of the tortoise and the hare.

Start. Do something. Take action. Complete one of these actions every single day. You may need to repeat the same action day after day. You may need to raise the bar a little at a time to keep yourself moving forward. But don't procrastinate or put it off until tomorrow.

Adopt an attitude of no excuses. You will never achieve your goals and dreams without doing the work. Dreams don't achieve themselves.

Tips to Stay Motivated

Measure, assess and plot your progress on your chart on the check in dates you identified earlier. Report your progress to your accountability partner.

Identify and list new actions you need to take to continue making progress or take your achievement to the next level. Create a plan. Work the plan step by step and day by day. Never let a day go by without doing something toward the achievement of your goals.

Reward yourself at specific intervals as you make progress toward your goals and bigger dreams. Make a list of motivators that will keep you positive, energized and moving forward. Do not punish yourself for regressing or slipping backwards. Rather, focus only on the positive outcome and rewards of achieving measurable progress. If you regress, simply start again. Be sure your rewards are directly related to--and do not inadvertently contradict or undermine--your dream and vision. For example, getting a relaxing massage is an excellent motivator for walking a mile every day for a week. Indulging in a hot fudge sundae is counterproductive and not a good reward. Hiring an employee to work Sundays so you can take that day off is a great motivator when your net income increases by $10,000, because now you have the funds to use to pay for that employee.

Monitor how progress toward one goal effects progress toward other goals. Modify goals and rewards as needed to ensure the realization of each goal will still help move you one step closer to your destination.

Remember to enjoy the journey on the way to achieving your goals, dream and vision as much as you will enjoy the destination. If you don't enjoy the journey, you probably won't really appreciate the destination either.