People love setting goals. Not too many people achieve them. Why? I think it is because people set goals without thinking. They set them because everybody else around them is doing it. Seldom people ask: “Why do I need this goal? What will accomplishing this goal accomplish in my life?” I am going to attempt to correct this situation with this article.
Read on.
I have never set yearly goals before this year because I always had my life planned out for me: register for classes, work out, get a degree and so on. However, now that I am a free man, it makes a lot of sense to set goals. Many people call this the New Years resolution, but I just despise the word because to me it represent the epidemic of laziness. So let us just call it goals.
The key question for me was: “What type of goals do I set?”
I knew it had to do something with the purpose of life that I have defined for myself: “Evolve by consciously seeking and learning from unique value adding experiences with a purpose of becoming a positive role model.” Yet, that was too vague.
I had to narrow it down. I did not want to pick random goals without any purpose in my mind. Then I thought that I should set life long goals that would support my life’s purpose. But then, how do I know that these life long goals will not change over time? It was a bummer.
Then I remembered!
I had to choose goals that would support my core values which are aligned with my purpose of life! It all made so much sense! Values define who we are and guide us in our lives. Therefore, if I want to have a clear sense of who I am and the direction of where I am going, then I must reinforce my values. I can reinforce them by setting goals that are congruent with those values.
For example, some of my values are independence, growth and experience. As I was looking over the list of my values, I realized that I was neglecting a major value of mine: independence. The next simple step was to just think of things which would enable me to become more independent.
It was easy!
I wrote them all out. I repeated the process until I had a complete list of major purposeful goals that I want accomplish in 2010. You can do it too!
Before you start you will need two major ingredients:
- Your Purpose Of Life
- Your Core Values
Once you have those taken care of, you can easily proceed by asking yourself a simple question: “Am I living this value in my life?” If not, then you simply ask yourself: “What do I need to do to start living this value?”
It is very simple and easy easy process, but it requires a lot of set up time: coming with the purpose of your life and discovering your core values. However, once it is all said and done, you will feel great as you will know the exact direction in which you need to take your life!
Happy Exploring!
2 Comments
Sometimes people set their goals without a right aim. I mean, they setup something that they are not capable to achieve.
Fatin:
Just like you said, some people set up goals that they are not able to achieve because they are the wrong goals for them.
If people knew what goals to achieve in the first place and why, they would achieve them at all times.
Best.
Tomas