The point is clear: Having written goals will make you more successful, and having written, well-planned goals that you review daily will make you super successful.
Let’s face it: We’ve all slacked off at some point. We have all settled for less than we could have had or accomplished. So now, this minute, let’s create a turning point! Together let’s commit to raising our standards. Remember, everything counts!
The Importance of Goal Setting
Learning to set goals and crafting plans for their accomplishment will have more of a positive impact on your life than anything else you could possibly do. As the saying goes, “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.” Goals serve as points on a road map, detailing how to achieve success in a logical sequence. While this sounds so obvious, the unfortunate truth is that most people take it for granted. They have only a vague idea of where point A is, and no clue at all about point B. Most people spend more time planning their summer vacations and their weddings than they do planning their lives and their marriages. Most people major in minor things. They get caught up in the things that keep them busy but contribute very little to the overall quality of their lives. Keep in mind that big goals generate lots of motivation and energy, while small goals produce little motivation. Pursuing your goals should be fun and interesting, like a cherished hobby. In other words, you need to design goals that really inspire you—that are so interesting, motivating, and stimulating that you’ll get up by 5 a.m. and stay up burning the midnight oil.
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What is the most magnificent goal you can pursue in the next three years?
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Intelligence, education, hard work, and good connections are useful, but without goals, you tend to drift like a rudderless ship from project to project, never harnessing your full potential. Without goals, you can get by and even do well according to society’s standards, but you will never come close to realizing your unique gifts. Without goals, you will likely compare and measure yourself against others rather than against your own God-given potential.
Many have called goal setting the master skill of success because it is the essential ingredient for successful living. Without it, you can never come close to living your life to its fullest. With it, you can learn and master anything else you desire. But you can’t become an expert at setting goals through just one exposure to a CD or by attending a seminar. Mastery doesn’t come without deliberate, repetitive practice and a constant desire for never-ending advancement and improvement.
The primary benefit of mastering the skill of goal setting is that you begin to take personal control of your life. The overwhelming majority of Americans are so caught up in the urgent activities of daily living that they seem to be sprinting in a dense fog. They are running hard but going nowhere. They’ve confused activity with accomplishment.
Without goals, one does not live; one simply exists, drifting. Your life and your future will be determined by what comes along and attracts your attention. Denis Waitley writes, “The reason most people don’t reach their goals is that they don’t define them, learn about them, or ever seriously consider them as believable or achievable. Winners can tell you where they are going, what they plan to do along the way, and who will be sharing the adventure with them.1617
Those without clearly defined goals are continually tempted by every fashionable trend society serves up. Mediocrity is best defined as failing to set big goals for your life and neglecting to live the life God gave you. If we don’t routinely set challenging goals, we can become satisfied with surprisingly little. It’s easy to descend gradually into complacency and start accepting less than the best for yourself and your family. Mediocrity breeds mediocrity. If you don’t have a definite purpose, you’ll invariably drift in whichever direction the wind happens to be blowing. Instead of being assertive and proactive with your life, you’ll simply react to the world around you and become, as most do, the self-induced victim of circumstances.
On the other hand, with definite goals, you psychologically shield yourself from being influenced by fads and other popular distractions. You may notice these crazes and trends and even listen to some of them, but the existence of your definite, written goals will quickly steer you back to your predetermined path.
Top 10 Reasons to Establish Written Goals for Your Life
10. Written goals strengthen your character by promoting a long-term perspective.
9. Written goals allow you to lead your life as opposed to simply managing it.
8. Written goals provide internal, permanent, and consistent motivation.
7. Written goals help you stay focused—to concentrate on what’s most important.
6. Written goals enhance your decision-making ability.
5. Written goals simultaneously require and build self-confidence.
4. Written goals help you create the future in advance.
3. Written goals help you to control changes—to adjust your sails, to work with the wind rather than against it.
2. Written goals heighten your awareness of opportunities that are consistent with your goals.
1. And finally, the most important benefit of setting effective goals is the person you become as a result of the pursuit!
People who experience long-term, consistent success avoid reaching into too many baskets. They deliberately concentrate on a single purpose that permits them to be their absolute best. With goals, you’ll experience daily contentment because each day you will move closer to the things most important to you. You’ll be able to chart your progress and be inspired by what you’ve already done. As a result, you’ll gain momentum, and your successes will begin to snowball as your confidence grows and your ambitions expand. People without written goals don’t have a sense of where they are. Like driving on an unmarked highway on a cloudy day, they don’t know if they’re going north, south, east, or west. They have few mechanisms for constructive feedback and accountability. By contrast, the positive pressure created by setting clearly defined goals activates your inborn creativity and allows your unique talents to rise to the surface.
You were created and blessed with unlimited potential and the ability to make your life a masterpiece. The least you can do is set challenging, specific goals that will force you to stretch and increase your contribution to the lives of others.
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Adopt an extended, long-term perspective. You excel in life to the extent that you apply a long-term perspective in making your most important decisions.
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I hope I’ve sold or resold you on the importance of goals and the impact they can have on you, your family, your career, and your future. I want you not only to know about goals but to live goals! You can function at your best as a human being only when you are actively pursuing a set of meaningful goals.
Psychological Blocks to Goal Setting
With all these benefits, why don’t more people set goals? What are the psychological blocks that trick most people into just winging it through life? The next few pages will explain these blocks and show you why many people fail so that you can be alert to these tendencies in yourself and others. I will explain the human characteristics that lead to underachievement, frustration, and mediocrity so you can consciously try to counteract them. If your objective is to develop and maximize your virtues, or your successful qualities, it’s very important that you also understand your vices, or the areas that may hold you back.
Why People Don’t Set Goals
The number one reason people don’t set goals is that they have not yet accepted personal responsibility for their lives. Albert Schweitzer said, “Man must cease attributing his problems to his environment and learn again to exercise his will—his personal responsibility.” The starting point of all personal success is the acceptance of 100 percent responsibility for your life. Until you have claimed total a
nd unconditional responsibility for everything that happens in your life, you’ll never be serious about goal setting. Irresponsible people are like a leaf blowing in the wind with zero hope of steering itself in a meaningful direction. “Qué será, será! Whatever will be, will be.” is their constant refrain. They reason that because some events are out of their control (such as stock-market fluctuations, the weather, or the death of loved ones), all things must be out of their control. If things are out of their control, then why should they even bother trying to control them? After all, it’s a whole lot easier to put the blame for a mediocre life on someone else’s shoulders. Remember this point: As Emerson put it, “No one can cheat you out of ultimate success but yourself.” We have all been blessed with freedom of choice, and we will go nowhere until and unless we accept unqualified responsibility for our lives. We covered this in lesson 1. Keep in mind that prizes do not go to those who have been treated fairly but to those who have maturely accepted responsibility.
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Obstacles are the raw materials of great accomplishments.
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Another reason people don’t set goals is fear of criticism, which often develops during childhood. Parents, teachers, and other adults often discourage us inadvertently by pointing out all the reasons why we can’t achieve a particular goal. Their intentions are usually good. They don’t want us to get our hopes up and then be disappointed. But the end result is that we stop creating compelling goals and dreams for our futures because we don’t want to experience the pain of having them squashed. Each time an authority figure reacts negatively to a child’s expressed desire, the child becomes increasingly more hesitant to express those desires or goals. By the time we become adults, the hesitancy to desire something has become a reluctance to set goals, or at least goals that are out of the ordinary. (And those are the most fun!) It is difficult to become goal directed in a world that is centered on limitations. Our peers often laugh at us when we talk about doing or becoming something they can’t imagine for themselves. They may belittle your desire to start your own business, get into a career you truly love, become wealthy, or really commit to growing in your faith. Since nobody likes to be ridiculed, we learn to shut up and keep our dreams to ourselves, eventually forgetting what we wanted or even why we embraced those dreams. We learn to play it safe, to go along, and to not rock the boat. Unfortunately, this attitude of conformity and underachievement is transported into adulthood, where we continue to sell ourselves short.
A third reason why people do not set goals is that they simply don’t know how. Even if you earn an advanced degree in our society, you’ve probably never had any formal instruction on how to set, manage, and achieve personal goals. Virtually none of my MBA clients have ever had a single course on goal setting. This is a serious void because goal setting is the master subject, the skill that makes all other subjects useful and practical. Herbert Spencer writes, “The great aim of education is not knowledge, but action.” At least it should be. Remember that to know but not act is to truly not know. To think you know something but not really know it is a prescription for underachievement.
I’ve invested countless hours researching the concept of goal setting. I’ve devoted most of my adult life to teaching individuals, couples, kids, and organizations how to set goals effectively. Even so, I learn something or make a new distinction about goals nearly every day. That’s why it still amazes me to have others claim they know it all already.
A fourth reason people don’t set goals is that they don’t realize the importance of goals. If you grew up in a home where goal setting and success were not topics of conversation around the dinner table, then simple ignorance may be holding you back. If your network of friends and acquaintances do not have clearly written goals, then it will be natural for you to ignore yours as well. Be careful who you spend your time with, for you will inevitably start to think and act just like them.
A fifth reason people don’t set goals is what I call the curse of early success. Many individuals experience success early in their lives, then become smug and stop growing and improving. They may do well in college, get a prominent first job, or maybe even receive a rapid promotion. Their early success gives them a false sense of security. Those who fall prey to this curse are often pointed in the right direction but never do anything other than coast. This is a route of compromise. Do you know people who are making a decent living or earning good money but not doing a whole lot more with their lives? When asked about their goals, these people give you a surprised stare and then reply that they’re “on the right track.” “Settle, settle, settle” is their theme song.
A sixth reason people fail to set goals—and perhaps the most common—is fear of failure. Many people are afraid to set goals because they fear that by setting a goal, they and others will be able to determine whether or not they have succeeded. This is an especially important point because those who fear failure are other- and outer-directed individuals. They are afraid of what others may think of them, and they are afraid of what they may think of themselves. Winners follow their inner voice rather than the outer voices of the masses. People who suffer from the fear of failure harbor the subconscious thought, If I don’t try, I can’t fail. Of course, this is nonsense—a convenient cop-out. Winners know that the only true failure is failing to try. Failing to set written goals is the precise equivalent of not trying.
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When you choose to write down compelling goals, you are simultaneously choosing a compelling future. Exciting goals foreshadow an exciting future.
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Parents may promote fear of failure in their children by making their love and praise conditional on specific accomplishments. When a child believes that a parent’s love depends on achievements, he or she often becomes paralyzed with fear and unable to set challenging goals. The child finds more comfort in not trying than in risking failure. Conversely, the child who experiences unconditional love is likely to be assertive, ambitious, emotionally healthy, and eager to express himself or herself through a variety of pursuits.
Keep in mind that fear, while common, is a totally unnatural and unnecessary state of mind. The Bible says, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7, NKJV). Psychologists say that newborns have two fears: the fear of loud noises and the fear of falling. For the most part, though, we grow out of these fears. Later we learn a series of other fears that are, for the most part, irrational. These fears are unproductive and inconsistent with the abundant and joy-filled life we were created to experience.
And finally, a seventh reason people don’t set goals is fear of success. This may sound strange, but nonetheless it’s a predominant reason why many people fail to set goals. They are raised with the belief that it is somehow wrong or sinful to pursue our desires or to exceed average performance. Therefore, many people strive to be just like everyone else, sometimes even appearing to apologize for their accomplishments. They fear standing out or being different for any reason, even if it means sacrificing their success. Wouldn’t it make more sense to emulate the peak performers rather than the underachievers? Don’t we have enough of the average already? The Bible is clear that God loves excellence. The apostle Paul writes, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men” (Colossians 3:23, NIV). In Ecclesiastes 9:10, Solomon writes, “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might” (NIV).
Seven Reasons People Don’t Set Goals
They have not yet accepted personal responsibility for their lives.
They fear criticism.
They don’t know how.
They don’t realize the importance of goals.
They experienced the curse of early success.
They fear failure.
They fear success.
A variation of the fear o
f success is the fear of failure at the next level. Some people are afraid that if they succeed, they will feel pressure to repeat their success. To avoid having to live up to this new standard, they procrastinate and never give it their best, hoping that their lack of competence and confidence at the current level will remain a secret. This type of fear often manifests itself as subconscious, self-sabotaging behavior and is just as common in the business world as in personal relationships.
Eight Rules for Highly Effective Goals
When you follow each of the following eight rules, you can expect to develop your full potential and join the top one percent of high achieving men and women. Many skeptics and underachievers have haphazardly attempted goal setting without following these rules and failed as a result—erroneously concluding that goal setting does not work, at least not for them. Goals work for anyone who is subject to the law of gravity—that is, everyone. To ensure your success, follow these simple guidelines faithfully, and the results will speak for themselves.
1. Highly effective goals are written!
Putting things in writing is by far the most important step in goal setting. Wishes and fantasies are transformed into goals through the act of writing them down. By putting your goals on paper, you make them concrete, tangible, and physically real. Many studies have shown that people who write down their goals are ten times more likely to achieve them than those who have only mental goals. Similar research shows that people with written goals earn ten to one hundred times more than equally gifted individuals who neglect to put their goals in writing. Writing down your goals helps you to crystallize your thinking and gives you a physical device for focusing your attention. It stimulates your brain’s reticular activating system, which is the mechanism within your brain that controls your awareness. When you are more conscious of your goals, you will notice the people, resources, information, and opportunities that will help you achieve them.
Success Is Not an Accident Page 7
