It’s time for New Year’s Resolutions!!
It’s almost that time when people will be setting New Year’s Resolutions. Did you know that there is a huge difference between new year’s resolutions and strategic goal setting, even though new year’s resolutions are goals in themselves. The only difference between the two is that the resolutions are not very structured and therefore usually unattainable, hence people who set resolutions usually find themselves back to their normal routines soon after starting.
The drive behind setting any goal is the need to improve one’s life and grow, yet some people have this illusion that as soon as they set a goal, they think that they have accomplished the greatest milestone and start believing that they will see results right away.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to see results in our lives, this is proof that we are alive and we are dreamers who love to see the best versions of ourselves. However, we have to also remember that this life that we live in has certain ways that if we apply those ways/methods correctly, we will definitely see results. Like certain universal laws that are true and can’t be broken, such as; our thoughts create our reality and that our habits are the building blocks of creating that reality and so our goals also have to be applied in a certain way in order for them to be achieved.
Setting a goal is like telling yourself that you want to drive to from Johannesburg to Cape Town the next morning. Most people when setting a goal, they create a picture in their minds of them arriving in Cape Town the same morning that they left Johannesburg, if I’ve already set the goal, then the goal must happen now, how absurd!
Let’s have a look at some simple facts, the distance between Johannesburg and Cape Town is approximately 1385km, that is more than half a day of driving, can be all day if we include all the resting stops you have to take on the journey. Thinking that one can drive that long distance for a short amount of time, is being unrealistic, as there are many other factors to think of, like traffic jams and other unplanned delays on the road.
The reason why people don’t achieve their goals is because they are not aware of what is entailed in the process of going towards the goal. Cape Town is the goal, the actual driving from starting point, the checking of the car and ensuring that all is well and ready for the long-distance drive, the packing, the organizing of food, having a route plan, arranging activities to do when you get to the end, are all ACTION steps that must be taken. These are the action steps that must be taken in order to arrive at the goal, and all of these action steps must all be taken into consideration, they must all be done by you, or at least initiated by you.
These action steps include anything from your thoughts, to your feelings, to your behaviour/your habits and consistency. Being aware that as you journey on your plan, there will be a number of feedback stones thrown at you, it will serve you well in life to always look at “failure” as feedback.
You are doing something new and out of your comfort zone, you want to achieve something that you have never achieved in your life, that clearly comes with new wisdom and that will be reflected as feedback stones thrown at you to tell you that: “NO” this is not the correct method for this particular approach, giving you an opportunity to re-evaluate your plan and your methods, to give you a chance to take any learnings that there are and for you to let go, grow, and move on to the next phase of the process. It will not be easy at first, but as you learn new and better methods, it will become easier and easier as you go along the journey.
All goals that we set, must be in a SMART format and must be accompanied by an action plan.
S – Simple
M – Measurable
A – Achievable
R – Realistic
T – Timed
HAPPY GOAL SETTING!!!