Sunday, August 1, 2010

Way To Set And Achieve Your Goals

Change can be very uneasy sometimes, but without change there can be no progress and at the same time, without progress, life itself can get boring, dull or you find that you're just not enjoying the process anymore.
It’s been said that everyone has goals, whether we know it or not. We have goals to keep us going in life. E.g.; be our current job, or to get a different one. We have goals to save for the future, or to travel, take a vacation, or purchase the things we need and want to make our lives more enjoyable. Many great people believe it is very important to be focused on their goals while the rest of us do not see it as important at all. Henry Ford said and I quote, “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal”.
“Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending”. So there is no better time to set your goals than now.
Goal setting and goal achievement are much easier if certain steps are followed.

Steps in Achieving Your Goals
•Desire: - As Napoleon Hill said in one of his book; "The starting point of all achievement is desire. Keep this constantly in mind. Weak desires bring weak results, just as a small amount of fire makes a small amount of heat." With this in mind it shows your very first step in goal setting and achieving your dreams is that you've got to really, really want to achieve the goal. Believe in yourself that you can achieve the goal in question.

Specific Goal: - great men know to achieve their goals, they must know exactly what they want, or what they are trying to achieved. George Lucas once said; and I quote “Part of the issue of achievement is to be able to set realistic goals, but that's one of the hardest things to do because you don't always know exactly where you're going, and you shouldn't”. In other words, your goal much be defined. Be specific in your goal; never use words like some, or a little bit when setting your goals. You can achieve almost everything if only you brain can have a clear picture of what the goals are. Sidney Howard once said and I quote; One half of knowing what you want is knowing what you must give up before you get it.

•Have a Plan: - “A goal without a plan is just a wish.” for the path you need to follow to accomplish the goal. Create action steps to follow. Identify a critical path. The critical path defines the key accomplish-ments along the way, the most important steps that must happen for the goal to become a reality. Stephen Covey said, "All things are created twice. There's a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation of all things. You have to make sure that the blueprint, the first creation, is really what you want, that you've thought everything through. Then you put it into bricks and mortar.
If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else, said by Lawrence J. Peter

Write Down Your Goal: - Quoting Lee Iacocca, "The discipline of writing something down is the first step toward making it happen." This is perfectly right, always write
down your plan, the action steps and the critical path. Somehow, writing down the goal, the plan and a timeline sets events in motion that may not have happened otherwise.
For me what I do is to write a short description of my goals every single morning, as a personal reminder of my priorities and my objectives. The act of writing your goals down vastly increases your chance of success. Write it down! Then, keep your notes where you can see and read them every day.

•Measure your Goal: - A goal without a measurable outcome is just a pin in the sea. A time frame should be assigned to any given goals. Like the saying goes: Rome was not built in a day and at the same time It does take eternity to built it.“What gets measured gets done.” Define your goals in terms of height, weight, dollars, inches, or hours. Then measure your progress until you achieve your desired outcome.

Make you goal to be consistent with your Values: - some of the many reasons people fail in achieving their goals is that they have conflict between their behaviour and their values in life. When you values and your goals are in agreement, there is not limit or barrier in achieving your goals. It is advisable to have a good certification about your values first, and then set your specific, measurable goals that are consistent with your values. If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.

Review your progress over and over again: - review your process regularly, and make sure you are making progress. There are no shortcuts to any place worth going. If you are not making progress, try to figure out what has gone wrong, or better still hire a coach, read books pertaining to the goal in question, analyze why the goal is not being met. Don’t allow the goal to just fade away. Figure out what you need to do to accomplish it. Go over the process again.
This above listed steps to setting and achieving your goal could look simple, but it is the most powerful system you will ever need for achieving your goals. Cheers. See you next time.

Quotes on Goals
This is a story about four people named Everybody, Somebody, Anybody, and Nobody. There was an important job to be done and Everybody was sure that Somebody would do it. Anybody could have done it, but Nobody did it. Somebody got angry about that, because it was Everybody's job. Everybody thought Anybody could do it, but Nobody realized that Everybody wouldn't do it. It ended up that Everybody blamed Somebody when Nobody did what Anyone could have. Don’t leave what you can do believing someone else will do it for you

None of our men are "experts." We have most unfortunately found it necessary to get rid of a man as soon as he thinks himself an expert because no one ever considers himself expert if he really knows his job. A man who knows a job sees so much more to be done than he has done, that he is always pressing forward and never gives up an instant of thought to how good and how efficient he is. Thinking always ahead, thinking always of trying to do more, brings a state of mind in which nothing is impossible. The moment one gets into the "expert" state of mind a great number of things become impossible. -Henry Ford, Sr.

When people say to me: "How do you do so many things?" I often answer them, without meaning to be cruel: "How do you do so little?" It seems to me that people have vast potential. Most people can do extraordinary things if they have the confidence or take the risks. Yet most people don't. They sit in front of the television and treat life as if it goes on forever. -Philip Adams

You must have long-range goals to keep you from being frustrated by short-range failures. -Charles C. Noble

I tell you that as long as I can conceive something better than myself I cannot be easy unless I am striving to bring it into existence or clearing the way for it. -George Bernard Shaw