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Clearly Defined Written Down Goals?! Why?
By Mike Krsticevic | August 11, 2008
In a previous post (CLICK HERE) I stated the two key ingredients to achieving your desired outcomes were:
- make sure your goals are CLEARLY DEFINED, WRITTEN DOWN GOALS!!; and
- VISUALISE and FEEL what it feels like to be in that place when you have already achieved your goals.
Let me expand on the FIRST item in that list.
Clearly Defined?
What does it mean to have a “clearly defined” goal?
Is the wish to “be rich” adequate?
If you said “no” you are right. However, many of us spend our day dreaming about becoming “rich” while looking around us and “seeing” and “feeling” less than impressed with oursleves given our current situation.
What does it mean to “be rich”? Once again, I presume your answer would have been something like … “it depends” and you would be right. Each individual has a different definition of what it means to be rich.
Some of us believe than $1 billion in net worth means we’d be rich. Others believe being healthy and free from disease is to be rich. Others, yet again, will measure their “wealth” by the number of true friends they have in the lives.
Each of us has our own definition of what it means to be “rich”. However, the biggest problem most of us have is that we don’t know precisely what our definition is. Our definition is NOT clearly defined. If becoming “rich” is one of our goals than without a clear definition of what that means to us, we will forever be shooting at a moving target that we can never hit.
Would you play a game of football with no goal posts? Of course you wouldn’t. Yet many of us play the game of life that way and wonder why we can’t “win”.
How Clear Do We Need To Be?
In short … absolutely precise?
This means that we must:
- state the exact dollar amount that we want to earn in what time frame (ie, $5.34 million by 30 June 2015);
- decide specifically what toys we want to have (by when) (a Blue Oceano Maserati Quattroporte Auto Executive GT 2008 with Avorio trim by 30 June 2010);
- describe in serious detail our dream adventures (and by when we want to take them);
- describe in detail what our dream partner will look, sound, feel and smell like;
- describe our personal physical health and body image; and
- more!
We all know that a new house construction is never started without a clear blueprint/plan for what it is intended to look like when we’re done (ie, the clearly defined goal). Yet we often fail to create that same plan/”list of clearly defined goals” in our personal lives.
“I’ll Remember Them - I Don’t Need to Write Them Down”
Have you heard that infamous line before? Are you possibly intimately related to that person?
I know I used to make that same mistake … only to discover that I couldn’t remember what my goals actually were.
You absolutely must write down your goals! I know I don’t need to tell you that. If you’ve read this far in this post, I suspect your the type of person who really “digs” this “stuff”. But how often do many people think to themselves, “I’ll sit down one day and write them all out”.
Why?
Often it’s because:
- most people mistakenly believe it will take a “long time” to write out all their dreams and hopes and wishes. I mean, a whole lifetime’s ambition will take a ”lot of work”; or
- people FEAR that by writing down their goals they may have to commit to an outcome and take massive action only to possibly face their biggest fear, namely … ”but what if I don’t achieve it?” Whilst ever they don’t write down their clear goal they can never “fail” to achieve it. Whilst ever the goal is unclear and has an uncertain deadline, they can never fail … or do they never truly succeed?
- or both?!
Do This Exercise
Sit down for just 20 minutes RIGHT NOW and do the following exercise:
- write down just two (2) goals you’d like to achieve in each of the following categories in the next 12 months:
- income;
- career;
- toys and adventure;
- health and fitness;
- spirituality; and
- education; then
- put that piece of paper in a safe place and revisit it within 24-48 hours and review your list. Is there anything you’d like to change or enhance with respect to the accuracy of your description?
- now carry that list with you all the time and read it as many times a day as you can. Feel free to improve your list of goals with better descriptions and even pictures.
Let me know how you found that process. Add your comments below.
Topics: Goal Setting |
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