The Habit Of Setting Goals (Part 1)

Efficient goal setting

starts by knowing what you want to achieve and being clear about your intentions. Imagine you're hiking on a mountain with its summit in sight. You don't have to make it all the way up, you could instead visit the nearby waterfall and stay there for the rest of the day bathing, having a pic-nick, etc.

Or visit the refuge further away and relax for a couple of hours there, enjoy the views, eat something, read a book, talk with some people.

But if you continue going this path it will lead right to the summit! So what do you want to do, what is your goal? You have to be able to decide what you truly want out of your life experiences being work, marriage, friendship, hobbies, spirituality, etc.

It's true that no matter how big or small your goal is,

if you want to attain it in a period of real time there are going to be certain steps of action that are required because a goal cannot manifest by itself. Although this seems obvious it is something that somehow “slips” the attention of the majority. The result is that 90% of the resolutions people make for the new year never happen.

You want to set goals that make your life easier. Your goal is not just something written on a piece of paper or in your calendar, it's something you should aspire to every day; and when the time comes for review or celebration, your goals are still there with you on this journey through life in all their glory. So a goal should inspire you and not oblige you when you are thinking about it.

Of course, there may come moments that you have to push through feeling overwhelmed but still, you should be able to remember that at least when you first came up with this goal it was something you truly wanted feeling inspired by its potential actualization in your physical life. This is the fundamental of success and something to be clear about.

You should always set goals that are challenging but not impossible to achieve.

If you aren't challenged, then your interest will diminish and you won't be as motivated; if it's too difficult, something that many people actually do, it will lead to never succeeding in anything or finishing anything - a sign that the goal is probably way too hard!

To avoid this, your goals should have just the right amount of difficulty for you - not too easy and not too difficult. As you can see, for example, the comparison between setting a goal to

a) just go for a walk in the park 2-3 times per week to become more fit and healthy

b) become healthy, athletic and fit, enjoying a beautiful body, feeling proud and

successful at it by working out 4 times per week for an hour with a fitness trainer or by playing tennis 3 times per week for one and half hours (or something along these lines)

and

c) becoming the world’s champion in fitness breaking all world's records exercising 12 hours per day 7 days per week show us that these are three completely different fitness goals - the first and the last being too small and too big respectively.

Try to understand, of course, that these examples are relative and they are given just to show the point I want to make and not a guiding rule about what is hard, easy, and normal. Of course, if you are a professional athlete and you do, actually, go for the world championship in fitness these examples are not relevant to you - or if you are someone who just got out of the hospital after a serious surgery walking 2-3 times per week in the park at this moment may be for you the right way to acquire back your fitness and a healthy state.

Finally,

you need to have a constant check back on your goals to make sure you are achieving them. It is pointless and time-consuming to set goals that you know won't be achieved anyway. Usually what prevents us from succeeding in life is our failure in setting the right types of goals for ourselves. It is not uncommon for people to set goals without really intending on achieving them. You’ve probably done it before but eventually gave up in the end due to an inefficient process of setting goals. Whenever we set weak or unattainable goals that never really get defined, we often do this because either

a) we do it out of fun (we do not really mean when we say it but we declare something in a conversation),

b) we sincerely “would like” these things to become true (so it is a wish there but not a true intention),

c) we have a more or less real intention but we don't actually write down our goal with full details and never define a real plan (which leads us to fail at most times!)