Do We Need To Set Goals?

When I recently starting to write this blog, I knew what I wanted to achieve but it seemed like an impossible task. So I did some research and found one of the most important tasks that I need to do first. I needed to set goals that I could reach.

So why do we need to set goals? Setting goals is what gives us a way to measure whether or not we are staying on track and accomplishing the things that make us better. Without setting goals, the final results do not appear to be as clear. When you set goals and stick to them, it’s amazing what we can achieve.

Many people set out to do a task but they never set goals, this keeps them from knowing if they are actually making progress or not. Think about like this, when you are going to take a road trip you need to know what the destination is, this is your end goal.

But depending on how far you are going, say you are driving across the country, you are going to have to make a few stops along the way. So you need to set these goals or stops along the way to fill up with gas, stretch your legs, eat and even get some rest so you can make it to where it is you want to be.

Without goals you just have hopes and dreams.

To restate what the great Alabama football coach said, everyone wants to win but very few people want to prepare to win. And that is what it takes, you have to prepare by setting goals.

When you take the time to set your goals, you need to first start with the reasons you want to set goals and achieve them.

If you have enough reasons you can do incredible things, the reasons change your life.

Plenty of people have talent and abilities, they just lack reasons…

Look at your bank balance, you’re probably much smarter than your current bank balance, you just need enough reasons to change it.

Reasons come first answers (goals) come second…

You don’t get the answers until you have the reasons…

Again, you have to be inspired by reasons.

What are some of the reasons for doing well?

• Personal reasons – respect, recognition or just like the way it feels to win, just need the joy and feeling of always being a winner, not the money but the journey. People that think if they had a million dollars would never work again, that is the problem…
• Family – humans do for others that sometimes will not do for yourself. Andrew Carnegie , “going to spend the 1^st half accumulating money, 2^nd half giving it away”
• Nitty Gritty – hard little reasons, few hundred dollars in money clip or wallet, didn’t have 2 dollars to buy Girl Scout cookies. Had it with being broke and always carry money after I worked hard and made it.

I can’t stress this enough, you just need a reason to turn your life around. Make a list of reasons and you will have what you need to get to success.

It’s important to understand there are two types of goals, Long Term and Short Term Goals.

Formula for Goal Setting

• Long Range Goals
• Dreams (rest of your life)
• Short Range Goals
• Confidence Builder (tomorrow, this week, next month, this year)

Goals divided into 3 categories:

• Economics

Success is doing what the failures won’t do…

• Things (everything you want house, car, major and minor, when you check off a major thing celebrate it, if you fail then make it painful feel the failure)
• Personal Development (stronger, more decisive, be a leader, learn a new skill to make yourself better)

3 steps to achieving your goals:

• Work on your goals (or making plans, this is hard work, why most let it slide) “People who fail to plan are planning to fail”
• Write your goals down (put them in your journal, to study yourself. Create a Trello Boards or some other app…) To do better you have to be serious.
  
  Everybody hopes to get better, it only gets better with plans. Passive hope is an affiliation and even worse is Happy Hope.
• Check the size and kinds of your goals.

Your goals effect the ALL of (everything) your life, if you have bad goals then you will get bad results…

Be sure not to join the “Thank God it’s Friday” crowd…

Here is a great way to get exactly what you want and it comes from the Bible, “Ask.”

Ask simply means, “What do you want?”

I know you’ve heard this one, “Ask and you shall receive”…

If it’s that simple don’t you think you ought to look into how that really works?

3 keys points on asking and receiveing

• Asking in the beginning of receiving
• Receiving is not the problem. Receiving is automatic. What is the problem? Failure to ask.
• Receiving is like the ocean there is plenty … Success is not in short supply… Don’t go to the ocean with a teaspoon, trade it for a bucket…

2 ways to ask

• Ask with intelligence, be clear and specific (SMART goals) define and describe what you want. Goals become a magnet…

Make a plan and stick to it. A big part of achieving your goals is have a way to measure them.

S.M.A.R.T. is a method that makes sense when it comes to setting and having a way to measure short term goals.

When you set your goals the S.M.A.R.T. way you will find you can achieve them much easier. By making them specific and with a time limit, soon you will see your short term goals accomplished and that will lead you do accomplishment of your long term goals.

Brian Tracy Goal Setting Advice

• Focus on one big goal.
• Write your goals effectively
• Structure your goals as questions
• Identify your limiting step
• Take action quickly
• Prepare in advance

Start your day with tasks that apply to your reaching your goals. For example if you need to write then write. Don’t logon to Facebook and get lost in social media for 2 hours that is 2 hours of productivity that you will not get back.

Most people, myself included only have so much motivation and energy to use in a day to getting tasks checked off my short term goal checklist.

So, again don’t waste that first burst of energy you have on tasks that do not help you accomplish your goals.

Eliminate distractions, then work on the biggest and most difficult tasks first (if that makes sense sometimes a quick win is what you need) this is usually the best way to chip away at the larger goals and achieve a win on the smaller ones at the same time.

Set your working hours. I know this sounds boring (and it is) but it will work. If and when you brain figures out that you can work anytime and from anywhere, guess what? Your brain is going to lose focus and you will wind up getting confused on when it is time to work and when it is time to play.

Check those small goals off your list when you reach them. This will give you the small victories that will keep you motivated and will help you stick with your goals in the long term.

Reward yourself, as Brian Tracy say in the video below:

 Start and complete tasks, Evan Carmichael asks Brian Tracy “What do you think holds people back, they know what they want to do but they just can’t keep the habit and how do you keep that consistent?

Watch the clip below and be sure to listen up and be sure to catch this important point from Brian Tracy, “The key to success in life is task completion, if you don’t complete tasks you have no future.”

How can I stay motivated to reach my goals?

Now the time has come for you to follow through and reach your goals, you were motivated to set all your goals and even orgainze them into short and long term goals.

Now you need to staty motivated. So how do you stay motivated, the answer is discipline.

What is the difference between motivation and discipline?

Let's start with the definitions of each and then talk about how they work together.

From Wikipedia, motivation is defined as "a reason or reasons for acting or behaving in a particular way."

From Wikipedia, discipline is defined as a way to "train oneself to do something in a controlled and habitual way."

So we can say that when setting your goals your escape from where you currently are now to where you want to be as a strong motivation for setting and then working towards achieving your goals.

But discipline is what allows you to stick to your goals and stay motivated every day. Discipline is the key to you continuing on the path to achieving your long term goals.

What can happen if you don’t set goals, easy to just make a living or design a life?

When you don't take the time to set goals it can become easy to get trapped and settle for existence and not substance…

Setting goals will help you break out of the trap, just try it for 90 days and see what happens.

Remember you won’t get everything you want…

This world we live on is "a harsh mistress" and no matter what you do it sometimes it hails on your crops and rains on your parade, but you can get plenty (more than enough and what you ever dreamed) if you work the goal setting formula.

Let me ask you a simple silly question, how long would you give the average baby time to learn to walk, before you gave up on the baby?

Exactly. You would keep waiting and helping the baby until it learned how to walk.

To wrap this all up enjoy this rare video of Jim Rohn's mentor Earl Shoaff on gaining Success with Abundavita, and making plans (to achieve your goals).