How to Set Goals Using the 43 Things Website

Committing to goals becomes easier if you have feedback from others. Using the website 43 Things gets you to put your goals in print and gets encouragement and suggestions from others with the same goal. Here's how to use it.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• internet access
• an interest in self-improvement

1. Check out the website at www.43things.com. Sign up (it's free).
2. Start choosing your 43 Things (goals). Before entering a goal, put the keyword in the search field to see how many people have this goal. Perhaps you want to lose weight. The search brings up many variations of this goal. If you put "lose weight" then you share your goal with 29,000 people and the discussion on that goal will be very active. If you put "lose weight once and for all," you will be in a group with 22 people.
3. Click on a goal and scan down to see some of the entries and decide if that's the one for you. If yes, then click on the button I WANT TO DO THIS. That becomes one of your 43 things.
4. You can browse around to see what things other people want to do and get ideas. It might inspire you to learn to work on cars or quit drinking sodas or get over my fear of spiders.
   After choosing some goals, you can return and add more at any time.
5. After choosing your goals, look at them and enter some comments about them. Others with the same goal may have suggestions for you or say encouraging things. At the bottom of that page are the words, ASK FOR ADVICE ON MEETING THIS GOAL.
6. You can comment on other people's comments and questions and give them a cheer. It also gives the option to send you reminders on your goal (daily, weekly, or monthly) by e-mail. You can rearrange the order of your list also.
7. The site recommends that you:
   1. Entertain a mix of ambitious and silly goals.
   2. Make a good number of goals… but not too many (between 20 and 43).
   3. Review your list weekly.
   4. Talk to friends about your goals.
8. You can challenge yourself by adding a completion date to one of your goals and declaring your stakes. You can only challenge yourself with one goal at a time, so choose your challenges wisely!

Tips & Warnings

• Return to the 43 Things website and regularly update your goals.
• Stuck on a goal that no longer suits you. Just remove it from your list.