Having goals alone is not enough – GOAL SETTING

          

  

If anyone of you out there seeks to lead a purposeful life, it is imperative that you have certain goals set for yourself. That is, you know what you want, in your life. How can one be truly happy in his life if he doesn’t even know what makes him happy in the first place?

Having said that though, having goals alone is still insufficient. So what if you know what you want? Telling yourself “I want to be a doctor”, “I want to be rich and successful”, “I want to travel around the whole world” would still get you nowhere.

There are 3 kinds of people in this world.

Those who do not have goals,

Those who have goals,

Those who have goals and take action to achieve them. (Goal Setting)

The first kind drifts along aimlessly getting nowhere. The second kind might be happy just to ‘know’ what he wants. The third one believes in taking positive steps to ‘get’ them.

I never believe in quotes that says ‘Knowledge is everything’ and ‘Imagination is more important than knowledge’. They are true only to a small extent but have been too simplistic for most cases. Knowing and imagining will not materialize anything until you do something about them. In life it is not a matter of how much you know nor how much you want, but rather how much you do.

Goal setting can be the critical difference between a person who succeeds or fails. Be it for one’s professional career, personal dreams or health objectives, goal setting is a plan that keeps you in check, allow you to know where you stand every now and then. Remember, when you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

For instance, on the matter of income earning, let’s say you are an entrepreneur who desires to earn $120,000 per year for your business. So how would that happen?

Breaking things up, to make $120,000 per year, it would mean that you have to make on average $10,000 per month. This would also work out to be $2,500 per week and $500 a day.

So now you know, in order to earn $120,000 per year, it would mean that you got to earn an average of $500 daily. If it turns out that you are able to earn $500 daily on average for 3-4 months consecutively, you would then know that you are more or less on track. But if on the 5^th month, you start to earn below $500 daily, it implies that unless you take action to make things better, you will start to deviate from your intended goal of earning $120,000 per year, or vice versa. This is what goal setting is about.

By the same reasoning, if you are intending to quit smoking, you could plan to reduce the number of sticks you consume by 1-2 daily each week, and eventually to nothing.

There is always some truth to the saying ‘A journey of thousand miles begin with a single step.’

However, along the way, one thing to note is that never compare yourself with anyone. It does not matter if someone who pursues the same dream as you gets faster ahead of you. Do not be discouraged, but instead see how you might be able to draw from their strengths and learn the things that they have that can improve your situation.

Life is not simply about winning or losing. You don’t need to beat someone else to win. It is about making life better for yourself. Every step that you take in your goal setting process should put you in a better position as before.

Article Written by Ng Zhi Wei on 11 January 2008

(For an Ezine version of this article, visit http://ezinearticles.com/?Having-Goals-Is-Insufficient—Goal-Setting&id=929390 )

~ by Ng Zhi Wei on January 12, 2008.