Goal Personal Planning Setting Success: Do You Have Alignment?

Do your goals come and go without achievement? The problem may not be the goal. The problem may be the thought behind the goal. Sometimes you set goals because someone else says you should or you think you should, but in neither case are you all that motivated to get the goal so the goal will frequently be unfulfilled. Other times you set goals because you think you want them, but you still don’t do anything to get them and they go unfulfilled. Why does that happen? One reason that happens is because you don’t have a clear picture for what you’re trying to achieve. Plus you need to make sure you are building a life you want to live. The reason I say that is because the flip side of not achieving your goals is achieving them, and then finding that you hate living the life all those fulfilled goals led to.

Why don’t you have success hitting your goals? When you set goals and don’t hit your goals maybe you don’t even start your goals, it’s time to figure out why. There are a number of reasons you may not be hitting your goals: the goal is really not your goal, you don’t know how to do it, you don’t want to do it, and you aren’t sure what the outcome would be and how that would impact your life. On the surface these all may look like procrastination and a time management issue, but when you take a closer look you begin to realize it isn’t a time management issue it’s a goal alignment issue.

You will have more overall success with your goals when you know where you’re headed. Once you have the big picture clearly defined for yourself so you know and can almost feel what getting this new life would be like for you, you are ready to begin setting some goals. Most people set goals kind of randomly and they don’t all weave together to formulate a real plan for the desired life you want to live. That leaves you rather frustrated because sometimes you’ll be happy with the outcomes from your goals, and sometimes you’ll be dissatisfied because the goal outcome didn’t give you what you wanted. Set your goals based on the outcome taking you closer to your ideal life.

No action equals no goal. When you set your goals do they involve specific actions? When your goals are tangible it’s easy to establish action steps and measure progress. Intangible goals require actions too if you want success with your intangible goals. An intangible goal may be a becoming goal. By a becoming goal I mean, for example, you may want to become a better speaker. That’s great, but what would you do and how would you know if you were becoming a better speaker? Including actions in your becoming goal will make it a reality. Using the speaking example, if you wanted to become a better speaker you might include the actions of joining Toastmasters and presenting one speech a quarter improving your rating with each speech presented.

Every day you’re faced with new decisions. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by decisions and to say “yes” far too often. Once you have your big picture plan it’s easier for you to make decisions and feel good about the decisions you make. Make your decisions based on how well they fit with your big picture plan for your life. If the decision doesn’t fit then your response is, “thank you, but that isn’t something I can take action on now”. If it does fit check to make sure it fits now, and if not now, when it will fit in your plans. Alignment makes goal getting a whole lot easier.