When establishing your own goals and aspirations, you should match each one up with a definite purpose. Knowing why you are attempting to achieve something is as important as knowing what it is that you are trying to achieve. Your purpose should be short-term.
Setting a lengthy, complicated goal or a grand, futuristic purpose will stunt your chances of developmental growth. Each goal that you make is essentially a promise that you make to yourself, and just as Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking, once said,
“Promises are like crying babies in a theater, they should be carried out at once.”
Your purpose needs to be one that you can see in the very near future. It needs to be something that is imminent right now, and something that you are working toward that you believe you will accomplish sooner, rather than later.
Getting discouraged because of lofty goals will not motivate you toward your desired end.
When Sue came to me for coaching, she had struggled for more than four years with the goal of becoming a full-time professional speaker and trainer. She confided that her time frame was 5 years and that it was very easy for her to get overwhelmed with “all she would have to do to make it,” and often froze with fear of the tasks in front of her.
The first thing we worked on was “why” (her purpose) she wanted to accomplish the goal. Once established, I had her breakdown the BIG, 5-year goal into several bite-sized goals that stayed in alignment with her purpose.
Smaller goals were easier to keep track of and gave her points of celebration all along the way. Each time she attacked a new goal, she took the time to write down why she was doing it. With every accomplishment of a small goal, she got more wind her sails to keep going and a few steps closer to the big goal.
As you are beginning to define your goals and corresponding purposes, keep the following four tips in mind at all times:
Keep Your Purpose Short-Term.
Why is it that we approach our goals at the beginning with such enthusiasm and fervor, but seem to grow less and less confident as time goes by? It is partially because we become discouraged when these goals are too time-dependent. In other words, some of our goals are too far off, and before we can achieve them, we become bored or disappointed in the results.
Keeping your purposes short-term and breaking the larger goals up into smaller, more quickly reachable ones will systematically build your confidence and allow you to do great things. Each success will spawn another more ambitious, but equally as attainable, goal in the future.
The Results Should Be Quick and Align With Your Purpose.
Looking at the example given above, Sue had a big goal with 5 years in-between where she was and its attainment. This can be extremely discouraging. However, when she broke them into shorter-term goals of contacting five meeting planners, booking her first gig at $3,000, getting three referrals from her next gig, etc. she began to see results quickly.
Each time she checked one off, it moved her with purpose and gave her that added bit of assurance that she was on track toward her goal. All of your goals and purposes should have results that you can achieve shortly after working toward them.
Remember to Reward Yourself for Purposes Achieved.
Once you’ve carried out each one of your goals, you should never forget to reward yourself in some way. The idea is to consistently encourage yourself in a way that will push you to bigger and better goals ahead.
The reward will vary according to what is important to you personally. It should be something significant to you. Sue was fond of day-spa treatments and gave herself a week long retreat with her husband when she booked her first $10,000 gig.
As Soon as One Goal/Purpose is Accomplished, Replace it with a New One.
It would be too easy to become satisfied with completing your initial goal, and convincing yourself that you are content with doing just that. The reason why we are setting short-term goals and purposes is so that we can set more of them in the long-run.
If instead, you set short-term goals so that you can finish them and stop there, you have cheated yourself of being successful in the long-term. As each goal is accomplished, set a new one that is a little more challenging, but can be just as quickly achieved.
Repeating this positive cycle, of setting short-term goals and purposes, observing the evident results, rewarding yourself afterward, and replacing completed goals with new ones that are more challenging than the last, will produce incredible effects. Suddenly, you will begin to feel accomplished and confident.
Knowing that you are able to successfully accomplish your visions will help you to continue the process throughout your entire life. Before long, you will be following these steps without having to think about them at all!
Be your best,
PJ
{ 0 comments… add one now }