Now we're going to talk about travel planning and goal setting. And this is important because as the famous saying says, failing to plan is planning to fail. And like everything else that is important to us travel is something that we should plan for. It's not something that we just magically think or wish is going to happen. We know that goal setting is really important. And what exactly is goal setting?

It's a way of establishing an outcome or result that guides one's action is like having an end post or an end goal. And that helps to guide or frame your path so that you know where you're going to, as we always say, How do you know how to get there if you don't know where you're going? And there's a lot of research about goal setting. What does science tell us? Well, science and research tell us nothing. For one that goal setting increases motivation, achievement and success.

So if we set goals, we'll likely be more motivated and will likely be successful at reaching whatever goals we have for travel if is to go to a particular country or to try to get a job in a certain country, or to meet certain people, whatever our goals for our particular travel experience are, if we establish those goals, we'll be more motivated and more likely to achieve them and be successful. And also, setting your own goals helps you to take responsibility for the outcome. That means that I could sit here and give you all goals for your travel and say this is how you should go about it. But actually, when you set your own goals, you take ownership and responsibility and again, it cycles back to increasing your motivation and your likelihood of achieving and succeeding but there is We know what science says. But there's also an art.

There's both an art and a science to setting goals and to planning. It's important that you set goals, travel goals that are inspiring, believable and actionable. So they shouldn't be things that are completely out of reach, so that you won't have any motivation to get them because you just know there's no way that you're going to do it, they should be actually believable so that you can believe in yourself that you can reach those goals, but they should still be far, far out enough that you feel inspired by them. There's something that gives you aspiration that you'd look towards, that makes you say that you're excited to try to work towards those goals. So it's a balance between that aspiration and inspiration but also it being tangible and believable enough and something that you can take action on. So what we're going to do now is skill building around Travel goals, you're going to make travel goals that you can actually achieve.

What I want you to do is you can use the sheet that I gave you or you can do it in your travel notebook, you're going to make a list of short term and or long term goals, three of them. And the short term goals are anything with a duration of zero to three months. long term goals are obviously longer five to 12 months or longer, you're going to come up with three of them, you're going to establish a deadline for each goal. Because besides because we know that in addition to having a goal, having a timeframe or timeline is really important to making those goals. And then you're going to find a picture for each goal that you will attach to the goal that will motivate you to try to reach that goal. It's almost like a combination of goal setting and vision boarding, where you actually create a vision for what it is that you want to achieve.

And there's studies show that it's very Very helpful. So these are some of the pictures that inspire me. One, the one on the left is Mauritius. And it's a beautiful Lakeside picture of resort where you could just relax and just I just imagined myself taking in the beautiful air, the sights, the sounds, and the second is actually a temple in Japan. And I just imagine having that relaxing Zen experience learning about the culture and the history of Buddhism, and really having a fulfilling. Here's an example of how you can fill out the travel goal works.

So as I said, you write down three short term and or long term goals with a timeline and a picture. So say for example, I'm really interested in going to time to Thailand. One short term goal would be to get airfare and accommodations information for my trip. to Thailand, that could be specific, such as finding three ticket prices, and three accommodations options. This is assuming that I have no idea about Thailand, what airlines go there where I could stay. So I would have to start doing some research.

And I will give myself a deadline of two weeks from now. So that should give me some time to start searching on the internet, asking around reading, and maybe even talking to a traveler. Another short term goal is once I've gotten that information is to start a budget and plan activity. So once I get an idea of how much how much it might cost, and where I might stay, I can start to try to come up with a budget for my trip. And I can even start looking into some specific activities. That's my picture there that shows a hike that I would want to go on in the outskirts of bank.

And I'll give myself about four to six weeks to do that kind of research to make sure that I that I have my budget and activity's clean. And then my long term goal is the actual trip to Thailand. I'll give myself I've said it, you know, within six months I want to be having taking a 10 day trip to Thailand. And what motivates me is that picture seeing myself actually there in front of one of the beautiful temples in Thailand, on my 10 day excursion that's going to involve different activities and learning about the culture, and experiencing the foods and so forth. All right, and so make sure you fill this out. You can download it as a Word file so that you can actually insert the pictures to help motivate you the pictures are really, really important.

All right. Give it a try.