I could be the worlds greatest super-villain!

I have the most perfectly nefarious plan.  It would instantly freeze all progress, and literally make life so boring that people everywhere would fall upon their knees begging for relief at any cost!  It would cause the loss of untold billions of dollars of commerce, and possibly shut down some of the worlds most significant industries.  I can see it now!  Oh how there would be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

What is it, you ask, that could possibly upset the worlds equilibrium in such a devastating way?  Why it would be so simple, so easily executed that i’m surprised it hasn’t already been done!  It is simply this…..  (drum roll please)

Do away with all of the goals in the world!  Can you imagine a world without goals?  Not the ones you never keep at New Years.  We’re  talking EVERY goal of EVERY kind, in EVERY business and in EVERY competitive sport known to man!  The effects would be, well, HUGE!

NO GOALS ANYWHERE!

Think of it,  no goals, nowhere to go.  No goals, nothing to work for, and no way to measure success.  Just imagine sitting in a world famous basketball arena, two of the top seated teams facing off, thousands of fans quivering with anticipation, the tip off,  the red team gets the ball, and they streak down court, the pass is made, the crowds go wild!  But wait!  Where is the hoop?  Nowhere to be seen!  The player goes for the layup out of shear habit but he ends up with nothing but air…. literally.

And the end result to this terrifying scenario?  Well, obviously no one wins!  Neither team would make any points, the spectators will eventually leave in frustration, soon the lights will go out as everyone goes home.  A sad ending to what should have been an entertaining evening.

As “way out there” as this all sounds, it is not totally implausible.  In fact, huge multitudes of people go through endless days with no plan or thought other than to see what blows their way, or even worse, to just “get through the day.”  In this case, as with the fictional horror story above, there are no points to be made and certainly no one wins!  And of course there is no measure of success!

What about you, are you a goal centered sort of person?  When was the last time you set your mind to achieve some task or purpose, and intentionally formulated a plan to achieve it?  If it was recently, were you successful?  How did that feel for you?  And if it has been a while, what have you been missing in your life without a goal of some sort to steer your course?     Perhaps you might not even perceive that something is missing.

Tony Robbins once stated; “Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible into the visible.”   This is an insightful statement.  In the world of personal and process improvement, the first step to progress is to define your goal(s), and then to determine your current state. Defining your goal brings to light why you are engaged in any pursuit.   Finding the “whys” behind anything you do always helps.  But not every goal is  created equal.  Some goals are better than others.  I was taught years ago to make SMART goals.  The SMART acronym describes the attributes of a goal that will prove usable.

Here’s how to make great SMART goals:

SPECIFIC

It sounds a little bit obvious, but make your goal as specific as you possibly can.  Rather than saying “I want to be more patient with my children,”  try stating it more specifically and in a positive way;  “For the next week I will wait 10 seconds before responding to any negative response from my children.  During that 10 seconds I will ask myself; ‘Why would he or she respond like that?'”   State your goal in well defined terms from which  you can form a vision of what success looks, feels, and sounds like.  This will get you well on your way towards achieving your aim.

MEASURABLE

You can tell when measurable goals are comp;eted, or when progress has been made.  Instead of telling everyone that you are going to become a better bowler this year, try saying something like; “My current bowling average is 101, this year I will increase my average to 150.”   Not only can you tell definitively whether you have achieved you goal at the end of the year, but during the year, you can track your progress as you increase from 101 to 115 to 126 through the course of the year.

 ACHIEVABLE

You might ask;  “who in the world would make a goal that he can’t achieve?”  Well, people do it all the time!  Unrealistic and unachievable goals have killed many New Years Resolutions.  Don’t say; “I am going to have the best garden in the community this year,” when in fact you are lucky to keep a small row of carrots from turning tales up and shriveling.  Instead you can state the more achievable goal;  “This year I am going to give myself a better chance of keeping everything I plant alive by taking a gardening class.  I will also ask my neighbor George to help me know what grows best in this area.”  This certainly sounds more achievable!

RELEVANT

Do you know someone that makes goals that just don’t seem to make sense to you?  Or maybe his objectives were so obscure in nature that you asked; “Why?”    The struggle that many people have with getting their goals to bear fruit can often be traced to goals that are not relevant to any issue or objective.  Not knowing that the “Why” behind a goal really doesn’t achieve anything positive, undermines motivation, and leads to frustration.  Rather than setting that goal to never touch chocolate again in your lifetime, you might choose to replace a certain amount of your chocolate consumption with fresh fruit.  This trade replaces a loosely defined benefit with a more imaginable increase of healthy consumption.  OK, maybe not for some of us, but you get the idea!

TIME-BOUND

Goals should have a clearly defined period of time, or even better, a deadline.  Goals that just float out there, without a completion date, do just that, float around in your head in the realm of “Ill get to it when…”

Instead of; “I want to lose 10 pounds.”  Make it; “I want to lose 10 pounds by this summer.”  Do I really need to say why?   On the plus side of the equation, you have a time frame from which to do your planning, on the negative side, at least the dieting has an end in sight…….

 One final thought  

Once you have clearly defined your SMART goal, you are ready to make your plan.  But that’s a thought for our next Blog.   What can you do till then?  How about sitting down and taking stock of where you are in the various aspects of your life and perhaps set some SMART goals?  After all, this is the time of year for doing it!  And the good news is, you’ll hve some help this time!  So take that out that piece of paper, and start thinking and writing!

 

 

As always, please feel free to provide feedback on this blog.  After all, it is an experiment!

 

Till next time.