“A goal is defined as a target. A dream in action with a purpose. Goals will enable you to fulfil your purpose in life and live your dream. Here’s how setting goals helps”.
1. Goals motivate you and it draw out your sense of purpose:
“When you take a large activity such as dream and make it into smaller, more manageable parts like goals, you set yourself up for success because you make what you want to achieve obtainable. And each time you accomplish a small goal, you experience success. That is motivating, isn’t it?. Setting and meeting goals create a positive energy and motivate you to keep going even when obstacles arise. Goals not only help you continue to be motivated and that creates momentum”.
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“To suceed you have to move constantly towards the goal. And setting goals is the best way to ensure success”.
(Merilyn Jemiah, Youth Express, June 6, 2003)
“Goals help you focus your attention on your purpose and make it your dominant aspiration. They help you know where you are going. And as philosopher poet Ralph Waldo Emerson says,”The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.”
So friends, when you commit yourself to your dream and express it in achievable goals, you provide yourself with a visual reminder of where you are going and how you are going to get there. It is a part of the recipe for success.”
Your dream determines
Your goals
Your goals map out
Your actions
Your actions create results
And the results bring You success
(Merilyn Jemimah, Youth Express, June 6, 2003)
2. Focus on the Goal
“An incident where an Indian sage was teaching his disciples the art of archery. He put a wooden bird as the target and asked them to aim at the eye of the bird. The first disciple was asked to describe what he saw. He said,”I see the trees, the branches, the leaves, the sky, the bird and its eye.”
The sage asked this disciple to wait. Then he asked the second the same question and he replied,”I only see the eye of the bird. “The sage said,”Very good, then shoot.” The arrow went straight and hit the eye of the bird.
What is the moral of the story? Unless we focus, we cannot achieve our goal. It is hard of focus and concentrate, but it is a skill that can be learnt. On the journey to life’s highway, keep your eyes upon the goal.”
3. Keep your eyes upon the goal
“On July 4, 1952, Florence Chadwick was on her way to becoming the first woman to swim the Catalina Channel. She had already conquered the English Channel. The world was watching. Chadwick fought the dense fog, bone-chilling cold and many times, the sharks. She was striving to reach the shore but every time she looked through her googles, all she could see was the dense fog. Unable to see the shore, she gave up.
Chadwick was disappointed when she found out that she was only half a mile from the coast. She quit, not because she was not in sight anywhere. The elements didn’t stop her. She said,”I’m not making excuses. If only I had seen the land, I could have made it”.
Two months later, she went back and swam the Catalina Channel. This time, in spite of the bad weather, she had her goal in mind and not only accomplished ii but beat the men’s record by two hours.”
4. The importance of Goals
“On the best sunny day, the most powerful magnifying glass will not light paper if you keep moving the glass. But if you focus and hold it, the paper will light up. That is the power of concentration.
A man was travelling and stopped at an intersection. He asked an elderly man, “where does this road take me?” The elderly person asked, “Where do you want to go?” The man replied, “I don’t know.” The elderly person said,”Then take any road. What difference does it make?”
How true. When we don’t know where we are going, any road will take us there.
So it is must to fix our goal first, what we want? What will make us happy? Take some time to think about our goal first. Even if it is taking the whole day also fine. Make a clear goal and write it in a peper and read it twice a day. You will get a clear vision about it.
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5. Dreams and Goals
“Dream, Dream, Dream
Dreams transform into thoughts,
And thoughts result in action.”
–Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam.
“People confuse goals with dreams and wishes. Dreams and wishes are nothing more than desires. Desires are weak. Desires become strong when they are supported by
- Direction.
- Dedication.
- Determination.
- Discipline.
- Deadlines. That is what differentiates a desire from goal. Goals are dreams with a deadline and an action plan. Goals can be worthy or unworthy. It is passion, not wishing, that turns dreams into reality.
Steps to turn a dream into reality:
- Have a definite, clear written goal.
- Have a plan to accomplish it.
- Read the first two twice a day.
6. The Obstacles to Set Goals
- A pessimistic attitude – Always seeing the pitfalls rather than the possibilities.
2. Fear of failure and Fear of rejection – What if I don’t make it? If I don’t make it, what will other people say?
3. A lack of ambition – This is a result of our value system and lack of desire to live a fulfilled life. Our limited thinking prevents us from progress. There was a fisherman who, evey time caught a big fish, would throw it back into the river, keeping only the smaller ones. A man watching this unusual behaviour asked the fisherman why he was doing this. The fisherman replied, “Because I have a small frying pan.” Most people never make it in life because they are carrying a small frying pan. That is limited thinking.
- Procastination – “Someday, I will set my goals.” This ties in with a lack of ambition.
- Low Self-esteem – Because a person is not internally driven and has no inspiration.
- Goal setting is a Series of Steps
“If you ask most people what is their one major objective in life, they would probably give you a vague answer, such as, “I want to be successful, be happy, make a good living,” and that is it. They are all wishes and none of them are clear goals. Goals must be SMART:
S – specific, for example, “I would to lose weight.” This is wishful thinking. It becomes a goal when I pin myself down to “I wish to lose 10 pounds in 90 days.”
M – must be measurable. If we cannot measure it, we cannot accomplish it. Measurement is a way of monitoring our progress.
A – must be achievable. Achievable means that it should be out of reach enough to be challenging but it should not to be our of sight, otherwise it becomes disheartening.
R – realistic. A person who wants to lose 50 pounds in 30 days is being unrealistic.
T – time. Bound. There should be a starting date and a finishing date.
8.Different Types of Goals
- Short-term – upto 1 year.
- Mid-term – upto 3 years.
- Long-term – Upto 5 years.
“Life is hard by the yard, but by the inch, it’s a cinch (a very easy task).”
– Gean Cordon.
“Goals can be longer than five years but then they become a purpose of life. And having a purpose is very important because without one, it is possible to develop tunnel vision, where we are only obessed with achieving our goals. Goals are more easily achieved if they are broken into small ones.”
9. Goals must be Balanced
“Our life is like a wheel with six spokes.
- Family: Our loved ones are the reason to live and make a living.
- Financial: Represents our career and the things that money can buy.
- Physical: Our health, without which nothing makes sense.
- Mental: Represents knowledge and wisdom.
- Social: Every individual and organization has social responsibility without which society starts dying.
- Spiritual: Our value system represents ethics and character.
If any of these spokes is our of line, our life goes our of balance. Take a few minute and just think. If you had any one of the six missing, what would life to be like?”
10. Scrutinize your Goals
“A person who aims at nothing never misses. Aiming low is the biggest mistake. Winners see objectives, losers see obstacles.
I found it in Google, Our goals should be high enough to motivate yet realistic enough to avoid discouragement. Anything we do, either takes us closer to our goal or further away.
11. Goals should be Consistent with our Values
“Goals lead to purpose in life. It is the starting point for success. Aim for the moon. Even if you miss, you will become one of the starts.”
“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal”.
– Henry Ford
“It doesn’t matter where we are. What really matters is in what direction we are heading.
Effort and courage without purpose is wasted. Worry leads to negative goal setting. It is thinking about things you don’t want to happen.”
12. Activity is not the same as accomplishment
“There is a big difference between activity and accomplishment. This was demonstrated by a French scientist name Fabre. He conducted an experiment with processionary caterpillars. Caterpillars follow the one in front of them blindly. Fabre arranged them in a circle in a flowerpot so that the lead caterpiller actually was behind the last one forming a circle. He put pine needles (food for the caterpillars) in the centre of the flowerpot. The caterpillars kept going in a circle in the pot. Eventually, after a week of circling around, they dropped dead of exhaustion and starvation with food only inches away from them. We need to learn a lesson from the caterpillars. Just because you are doing something, does’nt mean you are getting anywhere. One must evaluate one’s activity inorder to have accomplishment.
A man was out driving with his wife and the wife said, “Honey, we are going the wrong way,” The husband replied,” who cares, we are making great time!”
If we confuse activity with accomplishment, we could be making great time but we won’t get anywhere.
13. Meaningless Goals
“A farmer had a dog who used to sit by the roadside waiting for vehicles to come around. As soon as one came he would run down the road, barking and trying to overtake it. One day a neighbour asked the farmer “Do you think your dog is ever going to catch a car?” The farmer replied. “That is not what bothers me. What bothers me is what he would do if he ever caught one”.
Many people in life behave like that dog who is pursuing meaningless goals”.
Action Plan:
- Make goals slightly out of reach but not of sight.
- Check your progress periodically.
