I don’t know about you, but I have had a hard time in my life understanding about setting goals and achieving them. I have taken so many classes in goal setting that I could teach one, in fact, now I do teach it.
Link:
Goal Setting – The Plain Truth
I recently had a conversation with one of my former students. She has been out of school for a few years now but isn’t satisfied with the direction her career has taken. In fact, she’s not too happy with her personal life either. Her voice developed more than a touch of whine as she said: “I don’t know what to do.”
So I asked her about her goals. Her response was a rather slack-jawed look of surprise. “Goals?” Well at least she wasn’t whining anymore.
I asked her what she would like to see her career in a few years. I asked her where she’d like to see her life in a few years. She knew the answers to those questions and quickly became animated as she discussed her desire to start her own business. We talked about what she would need to accomplish her goal and what she would have to change.
When we parted ways she felt a lot better about her job because she knew that she wasn’t trapped in it. She was taking a necessary step to prepare herself for a long-term goal. She had her eye on the prize and that focus energized her.
That is the power of goals. What are your goals? There are seven reasons why you need to have goals.
~ To give direction to life
~ To make sure we are the one choosing the direction of our life — not others, not fate, not the media, etc.
~ To motivate
~ To make sure we get what we want from life
~ To save time
~ To reduce stress
~ To give a sense of accomplishment
While it can be fun to live without direction in the short-term, in the long-term human beings are wired to need a purpose and direction. Goals give a sense of direction and purpose to life.
It is often easy to let others set our direction for us. We take a job because family or friends point us in that direction and then we follow the dictates of our bosses. We move in other directions because popular culture or the media tells us to do so. The simple truth is that if we do not set our own goals then we will find it too easy to follow a path set by others. This can lead to stress and unhappiness. We have a greater chance of happiness and fulfillment following our own path and pursuing our own goals.
While goals certainly give our lives direction, they also provide the motivation to get us through difficult times and choices. Perhaps going to college at night while working full-time may be stressful and difficult in the short-term, but in the long run being able to pursue the professional goals we desire will make it worthwhile.
Goals also serve as the destination for what we really want out of life. For some people, goals are measured in money or material goods, while for others goals are measured in time or freedom. If we do not have goals outlined that suit our unique perspective on life it is easy to become sidetracked by life and others.
Goals can also help save time. When your “To Do” list becomes too long and your calendar too full, then you can simply compare your goals to the list. What items help you achieve your goal? What items are necessary to your goal? Scratch off the rest as unimportant.
Just as goals save time they also reduce stress because using your goals to focus your life and choices makes it easier to make those choices. Should you take that new position at work? How does it match your goals?
Finally, goals give you a measurable sense of accomplishment. Every goal you achieve, in fact every step you make toward that goal, can give you a boost of energy and momentum to keep going. Each success powers you toward the next level of success.
Now go out and set your goals!
Read more here:
Achieving your Personal Goals is easy when you have a reason why to achieve your goal
Learn and understand your personal why to set and achieve your goals to improve your goal setting skills along with video, tips and techniques…. Goal setting is a powerful process for thinking about your ideal future, and for motivating yourself to turn this vision of the future into reality. The process of setting goals helps you choose your own reason why when you are achieving goals you have choosen. By knowing the reason why you want to achieve, you know where you have to concentrate …
If a comatose person were to earn an interest of 1 million USD annually on the sum paid to him as compensatory damages ? would this be considered an achievement of his? To succeed to earn 1 million USD is universally judged to be an achievement. But to do so while comatose will almost as universally not be counted as one. It would seem that a person has to be both conscious and intelligent to have his achievements qualify.
Even these conditions, though necessary, are not sufficient. If a totally conscious (and reasonably intelligent) person were to accidentally unearth a treasure trove and thus be transformed into a multi-billionaire ? his stumbling across a fortune will not qualify as an achievement. A lucky turn of events does not an achievement make. A person must be intent on achieving to have his deeds classified as achievements. Intention is a paramount criterion in the classification of events and actions, as any intensionalist philosopher will tell you.
Supposing a conscious and intelligent person has the intention to achieve a goal. He then engages in a series of absolutely random and unrelated actions, one of which yields the desired result. Will we then say that our person is an achiever?
Not at all. It is not enough to intend. One must proceed to produce a plan of action, which is directly derived from the overriding goal. Such a plan of action must be seen to be reasonable and pragmatic and leading ? with great probability ? to the achievement. In other words: the plan must involve a prognosis, a prediction, a forecast, which can be either verified or falsified. Attaining an achievement involves the construction of an ad-hoc mini theory. Reality has to be thoroughly surveyed, models constructed, one of them selected (on empirical or aesthetic grounds), a goal formulated, an experiment performed and a negative (failure) or positive (achievement) result obtained. Only if the prediction turns out to be correct can we speak of an achievement.
Our would-be achiever is thus burdened by a series of requirements. He must be conscious, must possess a well-formulated intention, must plan his steps towards the attainment of his goal, and must correctly predict the results of his actions.
But planning alone is not sufficient. One must carry out one’s plan of action (from mere plan to actual action). An effort has to be seen to be invested (which must be commensurate with the achievement sought and with the qualities of the achiever). If a person consciously intends to obtain a university degree and constructs a plan of action, which involves bribing the professors into conferring one upon him ? this will not be considered an achievement. To qualify as an achievement, a university degree entails a continuous and strenuous effort. Such an effort is commensurate with the desired result. If the person involved is gifted ? less effort will be expected of him. The expected effort is modified to reflect the superior qualities of the achiever. Still, an effort, which is deemed to be inordinately or irregularly small (or big!) will annul the standing of the action as an achievement. Moreover, the effort invested must be seen to be continuous, part of an unbroken pattern, bounded and guided by a clearly defined, transparent plan of action and by a declared intention. Otherwise, the effort will be judged to be random, devoid of meaning, haphazard, arbitrary, capricious, etc. ? which will erode the achievement status of the results of the actions. This, really, is the crux of the matter: the results are much less important than the coherent, directional, patterns of action. It is the pursuit that matters, the hunt more than the game and the game more than victory or gains. Serendipity cannot underlie an achievement.
These are the internal-epistemological-cognitive determinants as they are translated into action. But whether an event or action is an achievement or not also depends on the world itself, the substrate of the actions.
An achievement must bring about change. Changes occur or are reported to have occurred ? as in the acquisition of knowledge or in mental therapy where we have no direct observational access to the events and we have to rely on testimonials. If they do not occur (or are not reported to have occurred) ? there would be no meaning to the word achievement. In an entropic, stagnant world ? no achievement is ever possible. Moreover: the mere occurrence of change is grossly inadequate. The change must be irreversible or, at least, induce irreversibility, or have irreversible effects. Consider Sisyphus: forever changing his environment (rolling that stone up the mountain slope). He is conscious, is possessed of intention, plans his actions and diligently and consistently carries them out. He is always successful at achieving his goals. Yet, his achievements are reversed by the spiteful gods. He is doomed to forever repeat his actions, thus rendering them meaningless. Meaning is linked to irreversible change, without it, it is not to be found. Sisyphean acts are meaningless and Sisyphus has no achievements to talk about.
Irreversibility is linked not only to meaning, but also to free will and to the lack of coercion or oppression. Sisyphus is not his own master. He is ruled by others. They have the power to reverse the results of his actions and, thus, to annul them altogether. If the fruits of our labour are at the mercy of others ? we can never guarantee their irreversibility and, therefore, can never be sure to achieve anything. If we have no free will ? we can have no real plans and intentions and if our actions are determined elsewhere ? their results are not ours and nothing like achievement exists but in the form of self delusion.
We see that to amply judge the status of our actions and of their results, we must be aware of many incidental things. The context is critical: what were the circumstances, what could have been expected, what are the measures of planning and of intention, of effort and of perseverance which would have “normally” been called for, etc. Labelling a complex of actions and results “an achievement” requires social judgement and social recognition. Take breathing: no one considers this to be an achievement unless Stephen Hawking is involved. Society judges the fact that Hawking is still (mentally and sexually) alert to be an outstanding achievement. The sentence: “an invalid is breathing” would be categorized as an achievement only by informed members of a community and subject to the rules and the ethos of said community. It has no “objective” or ontological weight.
Events and actions are classified as achievements, in other words, as a result of value judgements within given historical, psychological and cultural contexts. Judgement has to be involved: are the actions and their results negative or positive in the said contexts. Genocide, for instance, would have not qualified as an achievement in the USA ? but it would have in the ranks of the SS. Perhaps to find a definition of achievement which is independent of social context would be the first achievement to be considered as such anywhere, anytime, by everyone.
Living in a “material” goal and success orientated society has confused the goal setting issue. Typical goals like a new car, a house, a bigger house, a boat, or goals such as becoming a famous pop star, achieving a certain position or the total empty goal of being famous, are usually made for all the wrong reasons.
The rest is here:
Setting Goals – A Holistic Approach
