Goals
They are always changing, always morphing, and sometimes nothing. Goals are so difficult to create, plan, and follow yet it’s such an important part of life. It’s not that they are necessarily “difficult” to create it’s that they define everything we do and if we do not deeply consider our goals then we may end up on the complete opposite side of the fence. In the book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown he makes it clear that you need to discern the vital few from the trivial many, and this goes hand in hand with goals. Before you start planning hundreds of goals you need to identify which goals are the most important, most beneficial, and most attractive to yourself. I have personally written a hundred goals at once as part of a goal planning exercise, but you know what? I don’t think I completed more than ten percent of those. Once you write one hundred goals down you start getting overwhelmed. Remember “Discern the vital few from the trivial many”, That is so important.
The first step in the goal planning process is to eliminate the non essentials. Eliminate those goals that you don’t have one hundred percent confidence and belief in. Do not over commit to so many goals at once. I have had this problem in my goal planning. I like to do so many things and I hate saying no but I have realized that the less I commit to the more I accomplish. Now when I say do not over commit I only mean do not over commit at the moment. You may have ten goals that you cannot say no to, goals that you have identified as essential. These goals are important and you need to prioritize them. If you want to accomplish all ten goals the key is to prioritize them, create a plan that displays the time frame for all of the goals, and start by only focusing all your energy on one or two of them. Knock those one or two goals out of the park and then move on to the next.
Let’s say that three of those goals are to start a business, open a non-profit, and join a business or public organization or club. Two of these goals are quite large and require a serious commitment of time. It’s imperative that you do not commit to three goals with this magnitude at the same time or you risk failure due to to overcommitment. Instead pick either start a business and join an organization or club, or open a non-profit and join an organization or club. Opening a business will take months if not years to accomplish depending on what industry you’re in, and joining a club is as simple as going to meetings along with other small tasks.
Their is much more to this process of planning, implementing and accomplishing goals but I am going to leave it at this for now. What else would you like to hear about?
