You have most likely had the experience throughout your life, where you have set goals and have achieved them. In contrast, you have probably set other goals or new year resolutions and have not achieved them; often leaving yourself feeling like you have failed, or feeling like you have let yourself or others down. Goals, when we are setting them, generally seem like the right thing to do at the time. Yet for some reason, within days or weeks, the goal has simply slipped from the conscious mind due to us being too busy and focused on other objectives.

It has often been said that “If you want to make God Laugh, tell him your dreams and goals.” But in reality, the only people who would suggest such a thing are the people who 1) don’t know what’s important to them, and 2) don’t how to set goals that they are certain to achieve. This article is aimed at exploring what it takes to set goals that are realistic and that you will have a high probability of achieving because you know the basics of goal setting.

One of the most important components of a healthy life seems to have been forgotten over the last 50 years or so. No more are the times when people would finish their day of work or study and come home and switch off completely in the company and warmth of friends and family. We seem to think we are switching off, but being bombarded by the frantic sensory rollercoaster of primetime TV is not entirely an act of relaxation! With conditions like stress, anxiety, depression and insomnia on the rise, we need some down-to-earth remedies to bring us back into a healthy equilibrium, so we’re alive, inspired, and truly ready for what life has to throw our way.

One solution to our modern dilemma is to establish clear boundaries between the 'Yin' and 'Yang' components of our lives.

So many of us have this idea of what we would really love to do with our lives, and in order to get to that place, we usually have a lot of groundwork to do. So we do some study, some research, hold a day job, save our pennies––gradually building ourselves up to the point where we can start the business, tour with the band, travel the world, or whatever it is that we’d love to do. Often, we look around for a job that’s non-threatening, relatively easy to do, something that we can totally switch off from at the end of the day, and that’s a totally understandable thing to do. For, if we are clear on what we’d really love to be doing, why would we choose an interim job or career that’s going to involve a high level of commitment, passion, and dedication?

But what happens when you start getting fed up with the day job, unable to contain your desire to get home and do what you love? What happens when you spend eight hours a day, grumpy, irritable, in a despondent, unenthusiastic state of mind?