SIX REASONS TO SET GOALS

SIX REASONS TO SET GOALS

 

Few success practices are as important as articulating your most closely held goals and then reviewing them daily. Getting masterful at setting and then considering your goals on a consistent basis is essential to a life of greatness. And yet, most people don’t spend more than an hour a year doing this. It’s true: People spend more time planning summer vacations than they do designing their lives.

 

In my mind, there are six big reasons to set goals: Focus, Growth, Intentionality, Measurement, Alignment and Inspiration.

 

FOCUS: Where your focus goes your energy flows. I noticed that one of the primary traits of highly successful entrepreneurs, captains of industry etc is their focus. They know their “vital few”, in other words, the key goals they need to achieve to get to the extraordinary. And then they focus like crazy on them. Goals breed focus. Simple but very powerful.

 

GROWTH: Goal-setting promotes personal growth. The real value of reaching a goal lies not in the result achieved but in what the journey you’ve walked to get to the goal has made of you as a person.

 

INTENTIONALITY: It’s easy to live life by accident and sleepwalk through your days. It you don’t act on life, life has a way of acting on you. By articulating your goals and then reviewing them for five minutes each morning, you will exert your influence on the life and live in a proactive rather than reactive manner. By setting goals, you will have a framework or decision matrix that will drive better choices. You will become aware – within a few seconds – when you get off plan. You’ll make fewer mistakes and get more done in less time. As the novelist Saul Bellow said: “A plan relive you of the torment of choice”

 

MEASUREMENT: Amos Shapiro, CEO of El El, Israel’s national airline offered me a tour of Tel Aviv’s spectacular airport when I was last there. In one of the meeting rooms used by his staff, a statement appeared on a crumpled piece of paper stuck to a wall: “what gets measured gets improved”. Very effective. Setting goals gives you something to measure. If your physical goal is to get down to 12% body fat, you have a standard against which to measure your progress. And as you measure, you have a basis on which to improve. With a clearer awareness of your goals you can make their choices. With better choices, you will see better results.

 

ALIGNMENT: I’ll share one of my best “secrets of success” with you. Ensure your daily actions are aligned with your deepest values. Let me put it another way. There can be no happiness if your commitments are not congruent with your convictions. Isn’t that what integrity is all about, ensuring that your schedule reflects your values and what you stand for? Setting clear goals that are aligned with your most important values is a superb way to get to personal greatness.

 

INSPIRATION: Goals breathe life into your days. The very act of articulating your goals on a crisp white paper causes you to step into a whole new possibility for what your life can become. Setting your goals is a statement that you refuse to be ordinary. Setting your goals is a bold play for your best life. Setting your goals is an act of heroism because you are reaching for the potential that has been invested in you. As Mark Twain noted: “If everyone was satisfied with themselves there would no heroes”

 

“Setting goals is a bold play for best life. Setting goals is an act of heroism because you are reaching for the potential that has been invested in you”