Goal

Setting and Achieving your goals

On the journey to life's highway, keep your eyes upon the goal. Focus on the donut, not upon the hole.

Knowledge helps you to reach your destination provided you know what the destination is.

Unless we focus, we cannot achieve our goal. It is hard to focus and concentrate, but it is a skill that can be learned.

KEEP YOUR EYES UPON THE GOAL

On July 4, 1952, Florence Chadwick was on her way to becoming the first women to swim the Catalina Channel. She had already conquered the English Channel. The world was watching. Chadwick fought the dense fog, the bone-chilling cold and the sharks. She was striving to reach the shore but every time she looked through her goggles, 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 a quitter but because her goal was not in sight anywhere. The elements didn't stop her. She said, "I'm not making excuses. If only I had sen 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 it but beat the men's record by two hours.

Why are Goals Important?

On the brightest sunny day, the most powerful magnifying glass will not set a piece of paper afire if you keep moving the glass. But if you focus the light and hold it on one spot, the paper will burn. This is the power of concentration.

A man was traveling 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?" When you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there." Would you board a train or plane without knowing where it was going? Of course not.

Great minds have purposes, others have wishes. -Washington Irvin

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:

1. Have a definite, clear written goal.
2. Have a plan to accomplish and write it down.
3. Read the first two twice a day.

Goals must be SMART:

• S-specific. The statement, "I want to lose weight" is a wishful thinking. It becomes a goal when you pin yourself down to "I will lose 10 pounds in 90 days."
• M-must be measurable. If you cannot measure it, you cannot accomplish it. Measurement is a way of monitoring your progress.
• A-achievable. Your goal should be challenging, but it should not be out of reach, or the pursuit of your goal becomes disheartening.
• R-realistic. If your goal is to lose 50 pounds in 30 days, you are being unrealistic.
• T-Time-bound. You should set a starting date and a finishing date to reach your goal.

Goals can be:

1. Short-term-up to one year.
2. Mid-term-up to three years.
3. Long-term-up to five years.

Goals can be longer than five years but then they become a purpose of life. Without a purpose, you are likely to develop tunnel vision where you are obsessed only with achieving your goals. Goals are more easily achieved if they are broken into small ones.

Goals Must Be Balanced

Our life is like a wheel with six spokes.

1. Family. Our loved ones are the reason to live and make a living.
2. Financial. Represents our career and the things that money can buy.
3. Physical. Without your health, nothing makes sense.
4. Mental. This represents knowledge and wisdom.
5. Social. Every individual and organization has social responsibility, without which, society starts dying.
6. Spiritual. Your value system represents ethics and character.

If any of these spokes is out of alignment, your life goes out of balance. If any one of these six spokes were missing, what would your life be like?

BALANCE

In 1923, eight of the wealthiest people in the world met. Their combined wealth, it is estimated, exceeded the wealth of the government of the United States at that time. These men certainly knew how to make a living and accumulate wealth. But what happened to them 25 years later.

1. President of the largest steel company, Charles Schwab, lived on borrowed capital for five years. before he died bankrupt.
2. President of the largest gas company, Howard Hubson, went insane.
3. One of the greatest commodity traders, Arthur Cutton, died insolvent.
4. President of the New York Stock Exchange, Richard Whitney, was sent to jail.
5. A member of the President's Cabinet, Albert Fall, was pardoned from jail to go home and die in peace.
6. The greatest "bear" on Wall Street, Jessie Livermore, committed suicide.
7. President of the Bank of International Settlement, Leon Fraser, committed suicide.

What they forgot was how to make a life! It is stories like these that gave the readers the false impression that money is the root of all evil. That is not true. Money did not cause their problems. Money provides food for the hungry, medicine for the sick and clothes for the needy. Money is only a medium of exchange. In fact, it was the pursuit of money to the exclusion of the other five spokes in their lives that caused the downfall.

We need two kinds of education-one that teaches how to make a living and one that teaches us how to live.There are people who are so engrossed in their professional lives that they neglect their families, health and social responsibilities. Our kids are sleeping when we leave home. Tey are sleeping when we come home. Twenty years later, we turn around, and they are all gone. We have no family left. 

Quality Not Quantity

It is not uncommon to hear that it is not the quantity of time that we spend with our families but the quality that matters. Just think about it-is it really true?

Health

If you lose your health in the process of earning money, then you lose money in trying to regain your health

Social Responsibility

In the process of making money, if we neglect our social responsibilities and let society deteriorate, w will become a victim ourselves.

Scrutinize Your Goals

Goals should be challenging enough to motivate yet realistic enough to avoid discouragement. Anything we do, either takes us closer to our goal or further away.

Each Goal must be evaluated in light of the following Rotary Club's Four Way Test:

1. Is it the truth?
2. Is it fair to all concerned?
3. Will it get me goodwill?
4. Will it get me health, wealth and peace of mind?
5. Is it consistent with my other goals?
6. Can I commit myself to it?

Evaluate each of your goals by putting it to the 6-question test above, and make sure all your goals are in congruence. Goals without action are empty dreams. Actions turn dreams into goals. Even if a person misses his goal, it does not make him a failure. Delay does not mean defeat, it only means we have to revise our plan to reach our target. Just like a camera needs focus to take a good picture, we need goals to make a productive life.

Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use. -Earl Nigh tingle

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 stars.

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.  -Henry Ford

All of us in this world have a purpose in life. And that purpose of course varies from person to person. An orchestra would be pretty dull if everyone played the same instrument.

Make no little plans, they have no magic to stir men's blood-make big plans, aim high in hope and work. -Daniel H. Burnham

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 negative goal setting. It is thinking about things that you don't want to happen.

                                                     

Why Don't More People Set Goals?

The men who try to do something and fail are infinitely better than who try to do nothing and succeed.-Lloyd Jones

There are many reasons why people don't set goals, including:

1. A pessimistic attitude- Looking for the pitfalls rather than the possibilities.
2. Fear of failure- thinking. "What if I don't make it?" people feel subconsciously that if they don't set goals they can't fall. But they are failures nevertheless for having no goals is the sign of a failure.
3. Fear of success- Low self-image or fear of having to live up to their success cause some people to fear success.
4. A lack of ambition- a result of our value system and lack of desire to live a fulfilled life. Our liited thinking prevents us from progress.
5. A fear of rejection- worrying that, "If I don't make it, what will other people say?"
6. Procrastination- thinking someday, I will set my goals. This ties in with a lack of ambition.
7. Low self-esteem- because a person is not internally driven and has no inspiration.
8. Ignorance of the importance of goals- nobody taught them and they never learned the importance of goal setting.
9. A lack of knowledge about goal-setting- people don't know the mechanics of setting goals. They need a step-by-step guide so that they can follow a system

Goal setting is a series of steps. When you buy a plane ticket, what does it say?

• Starting point
• Destination
• Price
• Starting date
• Expiry date

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. Those are all wishes and none of them are clear goals.

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