Limited Goals Will Give You Limited Results
Early last summer I was looking for a job. I had taken a break from school and wanted to make some extra money so I decided to apply around for some sales jobs. I had never worked sales before so I wasn’t sure what I expected when I got all the way to an interview at a small company right up the road from my house. I was really nervous about it. The interview went good and was offered the job 30 minutes after it! The job ended up being a position where I would pitch customers at Meijer's how they should buy a variety of different items. I had a heat pad for instance. It was a tough job.
We would yell over the PA system in these stores in the middle of the day that we were giving away a free item and you should “Hurry on over!!” to get one before we ran out (We never ran out). We would run all the way where our stand was set up and a blanket covered our surprise free item that we would pull out after asking them a few times if they wanted it. It was pretty exhilirating and the actual selling came pretty easy to me. I became the fastest person to memorize the script and get my first sale up to that point and people were really impressed.
I felt satisified and didn’t really try after that, I felt lots of pride over it and thought I was doing everything right. I was the best to the people around me and for a time that small minded goal was my highest. Impress my boss instead of actually making a sale. That ended up hurting me much more then helping me.
I ended up doing an entire weekend without getting a single sale. I just couldn’t believe it, I followed the script I did the same thing I did during the week but for some reason I couldn’t get a single one done. My boss told me it was ok and it happens, my collegues said I could bounce back but I felt like I couldn’t. I quit that upcoming monday.
For a while, I sulked over this failure. Embarassed that I went from such good graces to being so bad at what I was supposedly paid to do.
I was confused and didn’t realize until recently that the goal I set of just simply impressing my boss instead of making sales is the sole reason why I failed.
Think BIG
Recentlly I’ve been thinking hard about that reasoning for failure and the idea of small ideas and how limiting they truly are. I realized having small goals limited me immensley. And if I really wanted to succeed I needed to have huge goals and not be afraid to fail.
I also had to destroy the idea that failure and success are parallel forces that never cross.
I had to begin to understand that they are in more of a circle bouncing between each other. Failure is totally relative and I think having small goals enables it so much more. So when you fail a big goal, you still always end up with something. “Shoot for the stars you get the moon.” When you limit yourself to small ideas and you fail, you recieve nothing and failure seems more harsh.
Shooting for small goals will only give you a return of small results. We don’t shoot for bigger goals because we have this insane fear of failure. Failure is the manifestation of doing something and the outcome was not something desired.
But this always isn’t bad. In fact I personally love to fail. The reason I love to fail is because failure is the closest thing to learning.
You Succeed in Failure.
People who hate to fail the most are usually failures. The reason this is so is because they sit and sulk over their failures, not realizing how to avoid them in the future and continue to walk down the same path. Like what I did after failing at that job. A failure in definition is close to the definition of insanity. Doing the exact same thing over and over but expecting different results.
The real way to break that — and what helped me break that — is to understand how limitless we are by creating something of your own. It doesn’t have to be amazing or even make money. But what it does have to be is a step to create something huge! We all have the power to become the greatest versions of ourselves, we simply just need to allow it. So here’s a rule of refrence to set bigger goals and become great:
- Ask yourself what you want to accomplish.
- Write your goals down and read them to yourself.
- Start.
- Do it everyday!
“The Man who says he can, and the man who says he can not… Are both correct.” ― Confucius
