The medical practice employee's guide to establishing worthwhile professional and personal goals.

Effective goal setting is an important practice management tool and a personal development strategy that many individuals credit for their success. Yet, establishing worthwhile professional and personal goals can be challenging. This article explores why goal setting is an important strategy for both the medical practice and the practice's employees. It describes the many benefits of establishing and working toward worthwhile, personalized goals. It further describes how practice managers can use goal setting as an integral part of their overall employee performance review systems. This article also offers medical practice personnel 12 practical goal-setting tips. It considers the most common reasons that people fail to achieve their goals and suggests how medical practice employees can increase the chances that they will achieve theirs. This article also includes the four benefits of having written goals and offers four additional tips for writing effective goal statements. Finally, this article provides a hands-on goal-setting template that medical practice employees can use to develop and evaluate their professional and personal goals.