Making Goals Work For You – “We Are Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On”
When meeting recently a good Norwegian friend of mine, she shared her work and life goals for the year with me and blew me away with her commitment and ambition. A real inspiration to write about this very theme….
How important is it to have a goal? Whether in your personal life, working life, what you want out of life, have you set goals for yourself? And is there a difference between a goal and a dream?
The tragedy of life does not lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy of life lies in having no goal to reach. Benjamin Mays
A goal provides an individual with direction and purpose. It’s a target, something to work towards, an opportunity for personal growth. Setting goals provides long-term vision and short-term motivation. Without goals, we may feel lost, adrift, and uncertain of the future. Setting goals helps prioritise time and helps individuals navigate through the vagaries of distractions. Goals provide life with meaning and value.
You may also have dreams, dreams of being, being a certain you and living a certain life. Dreams can provide a place for our busy minds to retreat to, a place to dwell, to smile and feel good, to become revitalised again. This is your happy place, a secret place in your mind which only you have the key to.
It’s OK for dreams to stay as dreams. Sometimes we need that special place to go to.
But are we clear with our wish list? What dreams do we wish to stay as dreams and which do we wish to shift up a gear? What choices will you make? Will you allow your dream to become your goal?
How can we shift from dreaming into achieving?
As coaches, clarifying goals is one of the key areas we can support our coachees…
A huge number of goals people set for themselves are not achieved. Here are some ideas to improve that success rate!
1. Spend Time With Your Goal
Get to know your goal. Imaginate yourself in that future place, in your workplace, your family, your local community. Visualise the achievement of the goal. See it in your own mind. How does the achievement of that goal make you feel? What emotions will you be experiencing? Feel the achievement of your goal, visualise it, bottle it and believe it. The clearer you are on the desired outcome, the more likely you are to be focused on making it happen. Let your goal inspire you.
2. Let’s Plan
Your goal may well be Specific, Measureable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound, but plan for the uncontrollable too. What is on the horizon which might also affect your dedication? What unforeseen actions from others may de-road your plan and what action do you need to take? What is your action plan like? You know the end goal, what individual steps will you take?
Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently believe, and upon which we must vigorously act. There is no other route to success. Pablo Picasso
3. Name The Why
Be clear on your purpose. Why do you wish to work on this goal? What is ultimately important to you here? How far are your goals in line with your values and beliefs? Clarity on the purpose also enables us to be clear about choices. If an option put to us is not in line with our overall purpose, we can be confident in letting that opportunity pass by. However, if a proposal is exactly in line with our values, we know we can progress this avenue further.
4. Commit
Write the goal down. The fridge is a great place! Share your goal and plan with others. Allow others to hold you to account. Speak of your goal daily to yourself and others. Let your subconscious mind be convinced too.
What do you need to do to stay motivated? How far do you surround yourselves with others who also share your enthusiasm and want to see you achieve.
Be brutal, limit the time you spend with those who drain your energies. Instead, let yourself be open to discover what strength your supporters can bring to you.
5. Get Started
Tomorrow is another day, as someone famously proposed! What’s wrong with today?
What actions will you take today to move towards your goal? What changes will you make? Stay focused. And don’t give up hope!
My Norwegian friend shared with me one of her top recommendations:
“Being clear on your goal, helps you say yes to things.”
What will you say yes to?