It’s All About You

Setting Successful Goals The functional structure of any successfully achieved goal starts at the goal and backs up to the seed. Whether the goal is long- or short-term, there is a beginning and an ending. The vision of being a teacher or running in the marathon may be the major goal, the ending, but that goal requires steps that become evident the more one pursues it. For example, to be a teacher, you will need an education degree. To get the degree, you may have to attend a university for a fi ve-year period. To pay for the university fees and living expenses, you have to work in the summer and maybe part time in the winter as well. To run the marathon, you need to prepare your body and increase its endurance. To prepare your body, you will need to follow a dedicated training and eating schedule. Successfully achieved goals are the outcome of imagining yourself at your goal and then backing up to the beginning, which is determined by your situation in life at the point of creating your goal. You then move forward toward your goal, beginning with short-term goals that will help you achieve your major goal. If, at all times, you carry the vision of achieving your goal, the required steps along the way will fall into place. Achieving your goal is all a matter of “baby steps.” Setting a goal is taking your imagination and motivating yourself to turn a vision into reality. If this idea is as simple as it seems, why do so many people fail to reach their goals while others continually succeed? The successful goal setters follow a plan. FIVE COMPONENTS TO SUCCESSFULLY ACHIEVING GOALS It’s all about D-R-I-V-E. Do you have the drive to achieve your goals, or are you missing a component? D—Definition R—Realism I—Inscription V— Visualization E—Emotion Definition—Successfully achieving a goal starts here. Too many people fail to reach their goals because they do not define them correctly. To achieve your goal, you must first define it and then narrow it down. You must be absolutely clear as to what goal you want to reach. You must know what you want before you can go after it. How did you arrive at this goal? Did you watch a person or an event that impressed you so much that your creative juices started fl owing? & e light went on, but what or who fl ipped the switch? Knowing how you came up with your goal will help you defi ne it more precisely. Once you understand your major goal, you need to break it down into subgoals (babysteps). & ese subgoals will help you stay on the right path and give you confi dence and immediate focus as you achieve each one. Small-action goals or steps will lead to major results. Defi ning your goals, big and small, is necessary to starting on a clear and organized path. Immediate is the key word here. (Refer to chapter 29 on time.) You control your focus at the moment. & e only thing that exists is the present. & e past is a memory and the future exists in your imagination, so defi ne your smallest subgoals for your present reality. A present-reality subgoal might be meeting with a university counselor to learn exactly what is required to become a heart surgeon. You may want to go to the motor vehicle branch to fi nd the requirements to get your driver’s license endorsed for air brakes for commercial truck driving. It doesn’t matter what your interest is; there are immediate subgoals. Defi ning subgoals will enhance your present reality. You will be inspired, because you have actually taken immediate action. As you reach each of your present-reality goals, you will fi nd that your major or longrange goal will be that much easier to see in your imagination because you know you are doing rather than just dreaming. You may want to ask yourself if your work is just a job to support yourself. Have you really thought about what you want from life? Have you ever written anything down? Defi ne your goals and establish clarity. Realism—You want to be successful, so it is important for you to set realistic goals that you can actually achieve. Your goal should be realistically attainable. When you have no chance of reaching a goal, your motivation, enthusiasm, and confi dence will be diminished. A two-hundred-pound person should not harbor visions of becoming a professional jockey. This may seem obvious, but many goals are in a grey area. People who take honest, accurate assessments of themselves arewell on their way to creating realistic goals. & roughout your life, many other people (parents, teachers, employers) have set goals for you, presumably all with good intentions. & ese goals may be unrealistic for you if they have not considered your interests or ambitions. Your passion may be lacking and this lack will thwart your chances of success. Start by settingan attainable goal in your mind. Many people never reach their short-term or long-term goals because they have set them too high. A young student of mine came to see me one day, quite discouraged. He wanted to run a marathon. On his fi rst day of training, he went out and ran ten miles. & e following day, he could barely walk. He had set his immediate short-term goal too high for his physical condition. A week later, he was under proper progressive training with a knowledgeable coach. People also fail by making their goals too easy. & ere is almost a direct correlation between the level of diffi culty of a goal and the satisfaction a person gets from achieving it. When the goal seemsunimportant, a person may put lesseff ort into achieving it, even though it may be a stepping-stone to a more signifi cant goal. Inscription—Writing your goals down on paper is imperative Younow have physical evidence of what you are thinking. You are already completing the fi rst step toward your major goal. & e actof writing your goal on paper, or typing it on your computer, completes a subgoal. You are now organizing your imagination, a very powerful step. Writing your goal will give you satisfaction and improve your life now, not tomorrow.& ere is only now;you can live only in the now, not the future. You may plan the future, but you will always live in the present. You may be a well-organized person in your mind, but committing your goals to paper adds a number of advantages. A fl owchart of your goal with its subgoals will bring clarity to your project and can be revisited again and again. You can alter your goals; remember, they are written in ink, not stone. Your written goals will serve as a measuring tool. Are you meeting, completing your subgoals? Are you keeping to the schedule you set for yourself? & e written goals will encourage you to be honest with yourself. Are you making the eff ort, taking the action, sacrifi cing the time required to complete the task? Writing a goal and its subgoals will greatly enhance a discussion with a colleague, a parent, or a friend. It can be very benefi cial to hear another’s comments on your thoughts, althoughit’s entirely up to you, as it always is, as to whether you want to share them. Visualization—Since the beginning of time, everything that man has created has begun as an imaginary idea, a visualization. & e amazing accomplishments of man—landing on the moon, for example, or fl ying fi ve hundred people through the sky comfortably at fi ve hundred miles per hour—began as thoughts. & is visualization leads to desire and passion, which in turn lead to action. & is key component to realizing your goals is something you have always had and you use everyday. Has anyone ever told you that you are a dreamer? Dreams are fi ne, but they are just fantasies, unless you act upon them. Now imagine shaping and directing these dreams and ideas to a specifi c target.