My today’s topic is very much outside the track of what I normally write, but worth pondering on.
Setting Goals in life in whatever you do is very important, then be it your personal life or your professional life. When you set a Goal, it clearly identifies what is it that you want to achieve in life and in what time frame do you want to achieve.
But it’s important to be realistic when you set goals for yourself. It’s good to aim high in life but when you set Goals for yourself being realistic is as important. It’s ok to have stretched goals at times but then you should give that type of commitment to achieve it. Your Goal should be very clear and precise and you should not have doubts.
When you start working towards your goals there are few important things you should follow;
Identify the outcome you want to achieve and then prepare an action plan as to how the end will be met. If the end is not clear that means the Goal itself is not clear. Also when you prepare an action plan set out some alternatives as to plan A, Plan B, this helps in case of any unforeseen circumstances. We talk about what we want to achieve in life, but if we are not clear of HOW is it that you want to achieve then you may fail. Identify your strength areas and put your action plan around it.
This will help you to gauge if you are on the right track in achieving your goal. When you have clear targets and milestones defined you will know if you are on the right path in achieving your goal, if you are unable to reach your milestones it means that you need to revisit the action plan of your Goal and see what is not working for you. Have a clear linkage of your milestones with the final desired outcome.
If you do not commit to your Goal you are never going to succeed. You do not achieve goals merely by just thinking about them and making an action plan for them. You actually need to work towards it, for which you need a dedicated time and 100% commitment.
Open ended goals sometimes fizz out half way.
You may set out your Goals in 4 categories.
a. Very Short Term Goal – Something you want to achieve in days, weeks, couple of months.
b. Short Term Goal – This is something that you would ideally want to achieve in a period of 6 months to 1 year
c. Medium Term Goal – Something you want to achieve over a period of 3 to 4 years
d. Long Term Goal – Anything above 5 years you want to achieve. e.g. buying a House
Again one should not misunderstand a Goal with a wish. A wish is something you desire and it may or may not happen, it depends how realistic it is. But Goals are something which are realistic, possible, you know you definitely want to achieve it and you put all your efforts and energy in achieving it.
A well thought Goal in life gives you a clear direction and road map in life. You know very clearly what is it that you want in life and how is it that you want your life to shape up.
When you start working towards the Goals of your life, the other important thing you should remember is enjoy the journey and celebrate your key milestones, this will boost your confidence and also motivate you to work harder towards the success of your Goals. You will have more happiness and satisfaction in the journey then the final destination.
There will be times when things may not go the way as expected but do not give up, have some back up plans and most important a very positive attitude.
I will share one of my experience. A few years back I wanted to renovate my house completely. It was not a small action, since I come from not a very grand background, so this kind of activity definitely needs a lot of planning and savings. When I set goals for myself, my best friend is my excel, I made a detailed plan identifying every single action and gave it a good time frame of 3 years. When the time arrived for execution, I was prepared with my quotations, my savings, a good plan of start and finish, every single item that I had to buy with its estimate. But to my bad luck the contractor turned out to be a crook and disappeared with a huge chunk of money and this is where I felt all the cards falling apart and I was actually not prepared for it, but yes my determination was still to go on. Of course I had a lot of my family support and we did figure out solutions and accomplished our Goal. But yes I was prepared with everything but uncertainty. This experience gave me a big lesson in life.
Don’t expect things to always happen exactly the way you want to, there will be unforeseen circumstances and you need to be prepared for that too.
A well thought, well planned and well executed Goal plan will always be a success
As an exercise today, you can think of your one short term and one medium term goal and share it; so that it then becomes one of your "Things to Do"
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