The first month of 2010 and of the new decade have already flown past.  Did you make some New Year’s resolutions?  Did you set some goals?  

Most people tend not to have written goals. Some people think about what they want. But, they don’t take the time to clarify and write them down. Others don’t bother at all and don’t think that goal setting is for them. Don’t kid yourself – you’ve been setting goals all your life. 

At a networking function recently, a senior member of the legal profession commented to me that they could not understand why people bothered with goals. This person claimed that they’d managed quite well without goals, thank you!  I had to smile.  Of course, this person had set goals – but perhaps had never called them ‘goals’. They had been through school, taken academic and professional exams and worked their way up through the legal profession. All those steps involved setting and achieving goals – to pass an exam, you have to decide to take the exam and work towards it and take it. 

Deciding on a career involves setting goals – how else would this person have got the right qualifications to become a lawyer rather than an accountant, doctor or executive in the corporate world? 

It may be that now, as an adult in a well paid, stimulating job (like this lawyer), you’ve stopped consciously setting goals. Many people do. Why?  Why flounder about in the current with no particular destination in mind? Whether we like it or not, we’re always moving towards something – from the present into the future.  By setting goals, we take charge of our route to reach where we want to be.

Successful people have something in common – they make a conscious decision about what they want in life and then pursue it.  To fail to do so is like embarking on a journey without any idea where you’re headed.  How will you know that you’ve reached your destination if you have no idea where you’re headed?  Wanting something without any plan of how to get it is simply dreaming.

A goal can be described as ‘a dream with legs’.  Our dreams are what we want out of life.   A goal is what drives us forward; it’s what we want.  Our goals are what will motivate us and give us some direction in life. 

The opposite of goal setting is ‘problem- thinking’.  This focuses on what’s wrong.  Many people get bogged down with problems, what happened in the past and who is to blame. Goal setting moves us forward in a structured way – it shifts the question from ‘What’s wrong?’ to ‘What do I want?’  For example, the financial global meltdown has happened.  It’s immaterial who’s to blame for that.  What are you going to do now, to get what you want out of life?  Get over the events of the past and plan your way forward!  

By exploring the present, you can design the future – you can find a way to take you from where you are today to where you want to be by finding more choices and resources for your journey.

You may have heard about a university study of students who set goals and were revisited 10 years later. (Some reports suggest it was Harvard, others suggest it was Yale).  The ‘study’ was supposed to have proved that those who had written goals (a mere 3%) had achieved everything that they’d set out to and more, whilst those who hadn’t set goals had achieved significantly less.  A researcher checking out these stories found that neither study exists.  Instead, Dr Gail Matthews, Ph.D., of Dominican University has conducted a study using 149 participants, whose responses bore out the premise that people with written goals do achieve considerably more than people who do not  have written goals.

What would happen to your life if you started to set some goals again and achieved them?   And, if you’ve set goals, written them down and are already working towards them. Well done!

If you need some help, either with setting your goals or overcoming your fears, I can help.    I’m running a workshop in Auckland on 20 February to help you with goal setting.  Later in March, I’m running the first of my successful Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway ® workshops. For each workshop, your investment is small – $150 plus GST for the whole day.  Both workshops have been  been a huge success. So, hurry and book your place!   I also offer personalised 1:1 coaching, if you’d prefer some individual time. Want to know more?  Email me at yvonne@strategicdirection.co.nz, visit the Strategic Direction page on Facebook or call me for more details.

Tags: challenges, coaching, fear, goal, Goal Setting, life direction, New Year's resolution, opportunities, review

This entry was posted on Tuesday 9th February 2010 and is filed under Goal Setting. Both comments and pings are currently closed.