Setting Goals is the First Step in success in your life , Simply you will be tomorrow in the place
which you planned to be in the present . So, Goals are simply your intentions
specified, clarified and written down, with deadlines.
From an early age your accomplishments and your happiness are determined
by your intentions,
the decisions you make and the
extent to which you carry them through.
In the Western world we are faced with
an overwhelming number of choices. A modern superstore has over 100,000 lines –
compare this to the range available to our grandparents just a few decades ago,
or to people in many other parts of the world. Imagine entering a superstore
with no idea of what you wanted to buy and no idea of how much you could afford
to spend. You’d be in total confusion. Until you narrow down your choices in a
meaningful way, you’re like a scattergun, firing shots in all directions,
hoping to hit something, but not sure what that may be. Once you decide which
choices are most likely to bring you happiness and fulfillment, decisions
become very much easier. Gone is the hesitancy, self-doubt and stress. You’re
24 2 “” clear on what you want, and ready to go out and get it. Life coaches
help their clients to be clear about what they want. Setting personal goals
also lies at the heart of self-coaching. If you’re not clear where you want to
get to, how can you map out your journey? How do you know if you’re heading in
the right direction? How do you know when you’ve arrived? You need goals on
several different levels:
■
Major (long-term) goals, which define the overall
direction and shape of your life.
■Medium-term goals, the stepping stones
that bring the long-term goals into focus.
■Short-term goals, which contribute to your
medium-term goals and provide a framework for your day to day actions.
One of the main reasons why some
people don’t achieve very much or enjoy life to the full is that they’re not
clear what they want. This is illustrated perfectly by Lewis Carroll in a scene
from Alice in Wonderland. Alice, wandering lost in the woods, encounters the
Cheshire Cat sitting on a branch, grinning. ‘Cheshire Puss,’ Alice began rather
timidly, ‘would you tell me please, which way I ought to go from here?’ ‘That
depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the cat. ‘I don’t much
care where…’ said Alice. ‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the
cat. ‘… so long as I get somewhere,’ Alice added by way of explanation. ‘Oh
you’re sure to do that,’ said the cat, ‘if you only walk long enough.’ What
point do you think Lewis Carroll was making when he wrote this scene? 25 STEP
1: CLEAR INTENTIONS – CHOOSING YOUR GOALS 16 Everyone has goals. For some it is
to find the next meal, for others to get through the day. Others set more
ambitious goals, like completing an important piece of work or completing a
marathon. You set goals all the time, whether you realise it or not. When you
wake up, you mentally set yourself the goal of getting washed and dressed and
arriving at work on time. Each of these goals comprises many sub-goals, such as
having breakfast, starting the car or arriving at the bus stop in time for the
bus, and putting your shoes on the correct feet. Sometimes these goals are
imposed on you by other people, such as the children, your partner or boss.
Without thinking too hard write down your immediate goals – those that are
preoccupying you right now.
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Examine your list. How do you feel about what you’ve written? Your values The
road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find what it is that interests
you and you can do well, and when you find it, put your whole soul into it –
every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have. John D.
Rockefeller 26 365 WAYS TO BE YOUR OWN LIFE COACH 17 “ ” Goal setting is a
vital skill. But before you establish your goals, you must step back and decide
what is really important to you in life. These are your values. It’s important
that your goals reflect your ideals and interests and make full use of your
talents. For your goals to be truly motivating and valuable, they must be:
■ Grounded in your deepest values. You must
have a clear idea of what’s important to you and the kind of person you
want to be.
■ Balanced. A balanced life is one where
each life area is in harmony.
■ Consistent and complementary. It’s
pointless setting goals that contradict each other.
■ Physically possible (for you).
Let’s consider your values. Your values are ideas, personal qualities and moral
codes to which you are drawn. Only when you express your true values are you
being true to yourself, and only then can you feel comfortable in your own
skin. Use the exercises on the next few pages to think long and hard about your
values and prioritise them. Start by taking a pen and paper and consider: what
do you most want out of life? Write your thoughts in your Self-Coaching
Journal. 27 STEP 1: CLEAR INTENTIONS – CHOOSING YOUR GOALS 18 List the six
things you most want to happen in the world. What for you would make the world
a better place? How strongly do you feel about them? Write a number between
zero and ten in the right hand column, where ten means you feel it strongly in
every cell of your body, and zero no strength of feeling at all.
Benefits of setting goals Success in life could be defined as the
continued expansion of happiness and the progressive realisation of worthy
goals. Dr Deepak Chopra Research shows conclusively that people who consciously
set themselves goals accomplish far more than their contemporaries. In a very
famous study at Harvard University in 1953, only three per cent of the
graduating class was found to have written goals and a plan for achieving them.
Twenty years later, these three per cent had accomplished more and accumulated
more in financial terms than the other ninety-seven per cent combined!
Moreover, they were happier and more fulfilled. Subsequent studies confirmed
these results. Why do you think this is? Why are goals so important? Your goals
are present-day mental images of future events. They keep your mind firmly
focused on what you want. Successful people, when not actively doing something
about their goals, are thinking about them, visualising them, imagining and
feeling them already accomplished. This makes a major impact on your
subconscious mind. The subconscious houses, among other things, a sophisticated
automatic guidance system, like an autopilot. Its job is to seek out whatever
you consistently focus your attention upon. Setting goals specifies the
‘coordinates’. The autopilot then guides you towards your specified target by,
for example, alerting you to opportunities and providing the impulse to take
action. If you fail to set clear goals, that is, select a destination, the
autopilot 31 STEP 1: CLEAR INTENTIONS – CHOOSING YOUR GOALS 29 30 “ ” is
confused. It doesn’t know where exactly you want to go, so it takes you round
and round in circles like a missile that has been fired without programming in
a target. Eventually, like the missile, you run out of energy, give up, or
self-destruct. It’s been said that human beings are like bicycles – as long as
we steer and keep pedalling we stay upright, but when we let go of the
handlebars or stop pedalling we lose momentum, wobble and fall off. The
subconscious doesn’t reason or ask questions, it simply does as it’s told. If
you let it know, explicitly or implicitly, that you have no direction in mind,
fine! As the Cheshire Cat pointed out to Alice, any direction will do. Do you
give your subconscious autopilot clear coordinates? Another advantage of clear
goals is that they turn frenetic action into effective action. Many people are
busy, but busy-ness is only the same as effectiveness if actions are
goal-directed. A marathon runner heading off in the wrong direction could cover
the same distance and burn up as much energy as the other competitors, but
wouldn’t win the race. Would you go to a booking office and ask for a ticket
without saying where you want to go? Of course not! Do you know where you want
to go? Is your destination clear? Have you booked your trip? When you’re clear
on your goals, you often find you attract people who can support and help you.
People who themselves have a sense of purpose in their lives are drawn to you,
and you to them, and the people you mix with have an enormous effect on you. Do
you attract positive, go-ahead people who help and encourage you to make the
most of life? 32 365 WAYS TO BE YOUR OWN LIFE COACH 31 32 Appropriate,
meaningful goals provide powerful motivation, especially when you are clear why
you want to accomplish them. A realistic, attainable, challenging and desirable
goal creates energy and enthusiasm, and the new skills and personal qualities
you develop tap into the vast reserves of creativity, intuition and imagination
that lie within you. Your confidence grows, and you begin to feel (perhaps for
the first time) that you’re in charge of your own future. Do you feel that you
are in charge of your own future? Does this future inspire, energise and
motivate you? An enthusiastic teenager made a list of all the things he wanted
to achieve. When he had finished, he had written down 117. Many were typical of
a 15 year-old, but his ambitions also extended to climbing Mount Everest,
visiting every country in the world and even flying to the moon. By the time
that young man was 47 years old he had ticked off 103 of his goals, including
flying to the moon. His name was John Goddard, one of the Apollo astronauts. He
is a perfect example of what can be accomplished by a person with challenging,
clear-cut goals. When you were a teenager, what were your major goals? How many
of them have you achieved? 33 STEP 1: CLEAR INTENTIONS – CHOOSING YOUR GOALS 33
34 Your mission Here is a test to find whether your mission on earth is
finished. If you’re alive, it isn’t. Richard Bach There’s nothing more
important than finding a sense of purpose that gives your life meaning, and
inspires and motivates you. Arianna Huffington makes the point succinctly in
her book, The Fourth Instinct: ‘Give a gibbon a mate, a peaceful stretch of
jungle and plenty of figs to munch on, and he will most likely live in
contentment for the rest of his days. Give a man or woman an environment
correspondingly idyllic – say, a successful career, adorable children and all
the comforts civilization has to offer – and we feel dissatisfied, restless and
vaguely aware that there is something very important missing from our lives.’
As a human being, your life is about much more than munching on figs. You need
purpose; you need direction. In your Self-Coaching Journal write a short
paragraph that summarises your feelings about your life’s purpose. This is your
mission statement. It expresses what you would like your life to be about and
how you can find fulfilment in a way which benefits others as well as yourself.
A typical mission statement could be:
■ My mission is to play my part in
conserving the environment.
■ I am an entertainer. My role in life is
to bring people happiness.
■ My mission is to help combat
discrimination wherever I find it.
■ My role is to work for young people and
fight cruelty to children. 34 365 WAYS TO BE YOUR OWN LIFE COACH “ 35 ”
36
■ I love gardening. My mission is to make
the world a more beautiful place.
■ My mission is to make lots of money so I
can plough it into good causes.
■ My role is to design and make beautiful
clothes that help people feel good about themselves.
■ My mission is to spread love, peace and
happiness to everyone I meet. What would you like to see written about
yourself in the obituary columns when you die, or alternatively, what you would
like your children and grandchildren to tell their children about you? Record
it in your Self-Coaching Journal. Imagine you are 90 years old, reflecting on
your life. What are you most proud of? Have you accomplished everything you
wanted so far? If not, what have you not done? On what have you missed out?
What would you like to do with your remaining time? Jot down your thoughts.
Finding your purpose is not an intellectual process – you must get in touch
with your inner self. Tonight and for the next few days, ask your intuition to
work on your mission statement just before you drop off to sleep. In the
morning write down anything relevant that comes into your mind, or draw a
picture, chart or diagram. 35 STEP 1: CLEAR INTENTIONS – CHOOSING YOUR GOALS 37
38 39 Spend time in nature. The peace and tranquillity will quieten your mental
chatter and allow you to focus on what’s really important to you. Take a small
notebook with you and write down anything that seems relevant, or, if you
prefer, use a voice recorder. Ask yourself (and write down the answers):
■ If I could achieve anything I wanted with
no possibility of failure, what would it be?
■ If I won ten million pounds, euros or
dollars (or any other currency) in a lottery and I wanted to use them to
benefit humankind, how would I spend them?
■ If I could have three wishes granted,
what would they be?
■ If I inherited a fortune, what would I do
for a career even if I were not paid to do it? What did you enjoy as a
child (children are more closely in touch with their intuition)? If you can’t
remember, go through old photo albums or scrapbooks, or ask your parents,
brothers and sisters for their recollections. Ask yourself how you build on
these things, do more of them or do them more often. Write down your answers.
Reflect on the coincidences in your life. Do the same people, events, problems
or opportunities keep cropping up? Is there a pattern? Is it possible that your
subconscious autopilot has been trying to guide you? 36 365 WAYS TO BE YOUR OWN
LIFE COACH 40 41 42 43 Having completed the above exercises, reflect on what
they reveal about your inner desires and inclinations. Then write your mission
statement and record it in your Self-Coaching Journal. Check: does it state how
you intend to benefit others as well as yourself?
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