Set Big Goals

Do you set goals for yourself? Sure you do. But do you set good goals? Have you achieved many of the things that you want in life? If not, how goal setting technique may need a little polishing. This month’s article is about how to set a clearly defined goal that will work for you to help you to clearly define what it is you want, and then achieve it.

What if I asked you to get in your car right now and drive to Junsiry? Could you get in your car and get there? Of course not. (Unless I’ve stumbled upon something by accident, Junsiry doesn’t even exist, I just made it up.) You wouldn’t set out to an unknown location without finding out where it was, and then planning out how to get there, because you know that before long, you’d be lost.

So why is it, that when we decide that we want to reach a certain goal in our lives, something that we’ve never done before, we just go out and do it without first figuring out exactly what it is we want, and then planning how we’re going to get there? And then we’re surprised when we end up floundering and giving up before we ever get there?

All too often in life, we don’t achieve our goals not because we lack the drive, the skills or the work ethic to achieve them. We fail to achieve our goals in many instances, simply because 1) We don’t really know what the goal was in the first place and 2) We don’t set out a clear plan for you to get there. Let me explain…

George is a successful man with a nice wife, two beautiful kids, a great job at the bank and house in a great neighborhood. To everyone else, George is living the dream. But inside George is miserable. George often thinks, “I just want to be happy. But I have everything a guy could want, what is wrong with me? I should be happy with what I have… but I’m not”.

So George’s goal, is to be happy and he can’t figure out why he isn’t happy. The problem George is having is one we can all relate to. After all, haven’t you ever had a time in your life when you wanted something more?

The worst part of George’s problem though isn’t that he’s miserable, it’s that he doesn’t have any idea what he needs to do to make himself not miserable. What he really needs to do is actually pretty simple. 1) He needs to define what Happiness is for him and 2) He needs to lay out a plan to help him attain that happiness. You can’t get to where you want you want to go, if you don’t know where you’re going.

The first thing that George should do is examine his life to find out what happiness would mean to him.

See George has a great job at the bank where he can work 9-4 and make great money, but there’s one problem that he doesn’t really talk about… George HATES his job at the bank. He hates it because it requires tedious work that doesn’t interest him. He has the skills and abilities to do the job well, but he has no interest in it. No passion for it.

George’s real passion is boats and he would love to open his own boat store. Happiness to George would be to work at a job that he was passionate about. He would be willing to make the sacrifices of less salary and instability if he could finally be excited about going to work in the morning.

So in order for George to find happiness, he needs to set out a plan that will let him transition from his position at the bank, to owning his own boat store. Not an easy task, but it can be done and most likely, he’ll begin to find happiness as soon as he starts making the plan.

When was the last time you asked yourself these questions:
“What does happiness mean to me? Is it making a lot of money? Is it living in a nice city? Is it having a lot of free time to spend with family?”
“What would make me truly happy?”
“If I could do anything, live anywhere, and be anything; What would I do?; Where would I live?; What would I be?”

These are questions that we are asked as children all the time, but when we reach adulthood, the time when we have real control over our lives, we stop asking ourselves the question! How crazy is that? And then, we wonder why we’re not happy when we’re working in a job we don’t like, in a career we don’t enjoy in a city that we’re not comfortable living in.

Life is like an ocean. If you have a boat that floats you’ll survive, but if you don’t have a clear direction and navigation tools, and you aren’t steering your boat, the ocean will take you wherever it wants to. So take up your compass and your paddle, set your sights on a destination, and start heading toward your destination today