Goal setting has always been a technique by which people striving for improvement try to see progress.
And while setting goals may represent a certain amount of anxiety and disdain for some, it can be an ace in your sleeve should you get in a position where things tend to go south and you for whatever reason stop with your progress, your motives, your will power and discipline.
You see, what setting a goal does is making sure that you play your “A” game from the start, and while it may seem like a slight discomfort at first, at the end of the day you will see some serious results, and what’s more important a line of constant progress forming along the way.
Goal setting advantages
The interesting thing to know is that many of us tend to make schedules and try to organize and plan our time – at least us, self-improvement junkies for sure. The thing here though, is that planning on day to day basis is never as effective and as motivating as goal setting.
You see, setting goals ahead forces you to believe in the realization of those goals, and that alone is a huge part of the equation for success, for progress. It makes the end goal seem possible, real, something already in the reach of our grasp. And this mindset is a jewel.
By setting a goal, you are already imagining the picture painted. You see it in your mind, thus it gets created in reality – it’s that simple.
Another thing that is distinctly different about goal setting and time management with all that planning and making schedules is this:
While time management gives you the discipline to complete task on daily basis, goal setting ensures that you have the motive, thus will power needed, for implementing that discipline.
It’s a no brainer really. It reminds you in a way of your end goal in mind, and you become more action oriented, when seeing yourself not yet there. Setting goals then, if translated in plain English, would be in the lines of “goal ahead equals motivation and will power, that leads to action and dedication, which leads to discipline, and it creates habits, and eventually success.”
That’s the way I see it.
Importance of setting goals
We must realize that without a clear destination, nothing of this is possible.
Many of us focus on sheer discipline, which is great, don’t get me wrong. But following only that pattern, we go through life fighting with things like will power, motives, enthusiasm, finding hard to undertake action more often than not. We follow this blind chase around the maypole, and then, crickets.
You see, we go with our head turned downwards focusing on day to day basis quite a lot. And I’m again not saying that this is wrong and all, but not realizing that we must slightly lift the head up as to see the big picture, the end of the road, we are stuck running short term, which only gives birth to mediocre results.
And what’s even more frightening, not living up to our potentials.
A company without a vision, without something to strive for, is as good as nothing, right?
Well it’s the same with you, me, everybody.
How to set goals?
Having the things said above in mind, we should realize that if there is any self-improvement to be witnessed, we must first have a firm clue as for where we are headed.
But this doesn’t only go to such extent. You see, having in mind that the goals set should motivate us, drive us forward, give us the supply of enthusiasm needed, we should start striving for something that is already appealing to us.
What do I mean?
Simple, for example, instead of striving towards something harder, let’s say getting up early each and every day, you set a goal like having more time and being more productive by being active in the morning.
You see, this way the picture in your mind is way more pleasant, and when you think about it, motivating yourself, you don’t feel uneasy at all.
We must picture the end result as something worth fighting for, something that keeps us up at night if that’s what it takes. Only then can we follow the goal and pursue it relentlessly.
I’ve recently came across a great app for all of you iPhone users out there. It’s a personal time tracker called ‘My Minutes‘ designed to help people get the most out of their day by tracking their time, creating goals for it, and hitting those goals. The app also has a streaks feature to keep people continually motivated.
It can’t get any easier than this.
Example of setting goals
I never like ending my articles with vague rhetoric’s. Therefore, let’s talk about setting goals in plain English.
Imagine you would like to burn some weight off of you, and you are up for setting this as a goal. Stop immediately. You see, as I mentioned above, the goal should be something you would like thinking about even at night time.
Therefore, your goal should be something in the lines of having nice sculpted abs, or seeing a lot of muscle definition instead. That way, you are more motivated by the day, and it supplies you with the will power needed for action and discipline.
And just as I stated in the very start of this article, you start believing the whole thing, not leaving any room for doubt, which makes the results ten times more likely to come, while also not allowing you to feel frustrated or discouraged at any point.
You have the goal of reading one book every week? Rearrange things – instead of that, you set the goal in the lines of becoming more literate, well spoken, having a broader vocabulary.
You see the direction of movement?
Setting goals like this will allow you to drastically escape all that anxiety that people connect with deadlines, plans, schedules, goals; because sometimes all of that can be counterproductive.
Set goals the right way, striving for improvement. Over time this will transform into an act of habit, where you do it almost as if it was a second nature. As time progresses you will be able to experiment with goal setting, and start setting goals that are even more demanding, offering greater improvement.
“The higher goal a person pursues, the quicker his ability develops, and the more beneficial he will become to the society.” – Maksim Gorky
My recent goals now are starting my own offline business, reaching wider with this blog as to create a community of like-minded people, doing the insanity workout again, running the 5K under 18 minutes… Among many others…
What are your present goals?
I would love to know.