Goal Setting Beyond Mere Motivation
My name is Bolu Akindele and I am not a motivational speaker, neither am I a Goal setting expert. So, why should you keep reading this anyway? Well, you can only confirm by reading. So, leggo.
I’ll advise we take a quick exercise before we proceed.
Can you accurately tell how many items with the purple colour exist in your house without looking or asking around?
It’s simple. You can’t remember simply because you haven’t been paying attention.
But, just be conscious of your actions from now on. From the moment you start walking around, you will start noticing purple items, regardless of how little or insignificant they are.
Why?
You can’t find what you are not looking for.
And that’s my first point which forms the basis of this article
The main reason you should set goals is just so you know when you find what exactly you are looking for.
But we all know this one way or the other. Why then are we fed up with setting goals?
Trust me, I’ve been there.
Let me share a bit of my story. Around August last year, my life was in shambles. In fact, I had suicidal thoughts at the time. Fast forward to August this year, I was so excited, I wanted to write on how to change your life in one year. What changed within that one year is part of what I will share with you. It’s quite pivotal and can change the way you perceive yourself and help you forge ahead with your life.
I always set my goals and finalize on them before the new year, so I’m not in a hurry to write something down. For this year, there were a few people I wanted to meet and I wrote down in my goals for 2017. They are not people you meet every day. This year, the 1st of January fell on a Sunday and I went to church with the excitement of the new year and having my goals in mind. I could hardly express my excitement when I saw one of the celebrities written in my 2017 goals sitting in the row next to mine. After service, I met up with him and on the first day of the year, I got one of my goals sorted out. My Point is, I would never have known that I was one step into achieving my goals or even taken the step to approaching the person if I hadn’t set my goals.
For me, I set my goals from sometime around September (which is my birthday anyway). From that time, I am actively taking stock of how the year went and what I could have done better. I think that so many people are surrounded by too much noise (social media, activities, electronics and games, disorderliness) and even something as weird as the atmosphere of absolute quiet is one I never take for granted.
This leads me to my second point.
You can’t set goals if you don’t understand yourself.
I was listening to a message from TD Jakes recently and one of the major things I learnt was the need to know yourself inside out. He said he had dated himself so well, he understands himself inside out. What understanding yourself does is that it helps you set goals that are unique to you. Don’t set generic goals. You won’t be able to achieve them.
After taking stock of yourself, you try and project. Have you noticed that by the end of the year, global economists predict how the financial season would be for the next year? Last year, we were told that we were going into a season of recession this year. Did it happen or not?
How do they do it? It’s simple. They look at what’s obtainable at the moment, look at what we’ve had coming for some time. They study trends. They look at what might be happening in the next few seasons, then they make a prediction. If economists take so much time and resources into financial prediction, your life is much more important. You should do so too.
So, here’s what I do.
I set my goals in line with this. For instance, I had a particular amount I wanted to earn for 2017 in my goals. Then I broke them down into actionable points per month.
I have attached an excel sheet at the end of this article to help you with that.
The next thing is to break down your goals.
It’s not enough to set a goal to improve your relationship with God because truth be told, there’s nothing you can use to measure that Goal.
Another valuable point will be to have accountability partners. It’s not as complex as you think. Its just having people in your close circle who can constantly remind you about your goals. I love to constantly share my goals with my friends because I know that I’m human and I get exhausted easily. They are the ones who will always ask about X and Y and Z goal and also ask why I haven’t worked on it.
My last point will be to ensure that you have balance in your goals. Imagine that your life is a wheel. So, first, you set your broad goals. Examples of the broad goals are: I want to have a CGPA (Cumulative Grade Point Average) of 4.5, I want to have a total income of 5 million in 2018, etc.
Draw a circle afterwards and divide the circle into the number of fields of life you operate in — Spiritual, financial, Educational, Intellectual, Health, Relational, Business, Career etc. Ensure that you constantly review your goals, know where you are slacking and the parts you need to work on. Never feel bad when you don’t achieve a goal. Go back to the drawing board and get to work.
2018 will only be awesome because we have put in the necessary resources to make it work right now.
You can download the goal setting template below
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