Goal Setting Hacks [1/3]

Acquire what you desire

Ask yourself what you truly want in life. Even though it sounds trivial, most people do not know how they would like to shape their destiny. As a result, they end up climbing the wrong ladder, which only leads to frustration, dissatisfaction and even depression. In order to make sure you have chosen what you truly desire, ask yourself why it is important for you to achieve this particular goal.

Does it make your heart beat faster with excitement?

Does it arouse the feeling of happiness and fulfillment?

Do you feel passionate about it?

Visualize yourself having already achieved the goal and deeply analyze the accompanying feelings. This is when you know whether what you want is what you truly desire.

I have a friend who graduated in the field of medicine just because her parents had expected her to become a doctor. Her parents wanted fame and respect. They wanted to boost their self-esteem and societal status. Unfortunately, my friend complied diligently without stopping to think of her well-being. Externally, she has been an outstanding, prosperous doctor for the past twenty years. However, internally, she is a mental wreck and still struggling to find fulfillment. It occurred that she had always wanted to get into fine arts and photography, but had re-prioritized her plans to suit her parents. Remember, at the end of the day, it is more important for you to feel good about yourself rather than the way you are perceived by the world. You are in your own company twenty four hours per day, every single day, so make sure you feel good in your own company.

Another friend of mine, started chasing what he truly desired only after he was made redundant. He had been working in his profession since graduating from university. Even though, he was displeased, he couldn’t summon the courage to redefine his career. The bad news of being downsized turned out to be the beginning of a new life. My friend went back to university at the age of 45, graduated in the field of project management and secured employment in a software development company. For him every day at work is a day of contentment. What is the moral? It’s never too late to chase what you truly desire. However, it is better to do so earlier than later.

So, explore yourself internally, analyze your inner feelings and you will know whether you are chasing the right goals. Even though I have given you only two life examples of people who climbed the wrong ladder, there are too many more who suffer today because they did not stop to identify what they truly wanted in life. I have also interviewed many of them who cannot cope with their negative emotions every Sunday evening before going back to work on Monday. They live from weekend to weekend.

Believe and Achieve

I always go back to what Henry Ford said, “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right”. This is called a self-fulfilling prophecy. When you appeal to your brain for something on a continual basis and with conviction, you simply get it. If you question your ability to achieve your goal, your brain will come up with many reasons why you should fail. The subconscious mind will search its database for past situations when you were incompetent and lacking confidence and failure is inevitable.

On the other hand, if you truly believe you can achieve your goal, your subconscious mind will recall the times when you were confident, relentless and unbeatable. These are the resources that will give you the courage and discipline to tackle your goals. These are the resources that trigger success.

We all have the potential to reach our target and it is surely not related to how intelligent we are. It is better to have less intellectual capacity and believe than being intelligent, but with no faith in yourself. Whenever I face a difficult task at work, I refer to the times when I had conquered formidable obstacles. I recapitulate the situation in my mind’s eye. I relive the moments and in this way, release the feeling of confidence once again. I pep talk myself until I gain faith. It’s simple, isn’t it? You did it in the past, so you can do it again.

Of course, it is important to set goals that are realistic in order to make you believe in your ability. For example, if you earn 60,000 dollars per year, do not aim for a pay raise of over 30 % of your present salary. If you weigh 150 kilograms in May, you simply cannot lose 70 kilos before going on your summer vacation in July. This is unrealistic and you are setting up yourself for disaster. When this happens, it becomes difficult to get a grip on yourself and try again. So remember, be realistic and you will reach your target. This will double your confidence and self-esteem and allow you to aim for bigger, more challenging goals.

Being realistic also means asking yourself whether you have the knowledge to overcome the hurdles that may appear on your path. If you do not have that knowledge today, then what skills do you need to acquire, what courses do you need to attend or which books do you need to read to increase your awareness? Once you know what you should do, get down to business to make yourself more academically prepared to achieve success. You simply cannot manage projects successfully without having people skills. It is therefore obvious that you need to hone your interpersonal skills and learn how to influence others in order to make them perform efficiently. So, prepare yourself to execute your task and it will be easier for you to believe in yourself. Remember, he who fails to prepare is preparing to fail.

Set SMART Goals

People keep asking me why it is so difficult to become more disciplined and develop the willpower to reach their targets. This is simply because, in the majority of cases, they do not know how to clearly define their goals. Remember, if you do not know exactly where you are heading, you will end up straying. The bottom line is that you need to create smart goals if you want to achieve success.

SMART is a mnemonic acronym that provides the criteria that will guide you when setting your objectives. S and M mean Specific and Measurable, so you need to aim for a specific target that can be assessed in a quantitative way or by KPIs, key performance indicators. The art or A R T part of SMART conveys that the goal needs to be Achievable, within the limits of Realistic expectations and should have a definite Time factor for its accomplishment. Let me be more precise by using the example of losing weight. The sacred words that you should repeat in your mind would be as follows: “I weigh 70 kilograms by the 31 December, YYYY”. The weight is the specific target and 70 kilograms represent the quantitative aspect of the goal with the KPIs varying from 82 to 70. 82 is for example your current weight and the worst indicator, whereas any number very close to 70 means success.

Is the goal attainable and realistic? Yes, because you presently weigh 82 kilograms and you have started your endeavor to lose 12 kilos three months before December. The time factor is identifiable because you set a specific date by which you will have reached your milestone. The brain needs a time stimulator to take action. If you tell the brain that you want to accomplish something sometime later or sometime in the future, then the brain will not understand the seriousness of the situation and remain lethargic. In project management, managers do not use words like some time next year or later this year. The software development schedule document is broken down into specific tasks, each having a specific timeline. Consider what would happen if there were no concrete time of delivery. Procrastination would step in and cause confusion and failure.

Do you yearn to increase your salary? Then your SMART goal will be: I earn 5,000 US dollars monthly by the 31 December, YYYY. Of course, you can and should go one step further and apply the law of auto-suggestion to envision and feel that you already weigh 70 kilos and truly feel the pleasure and happiness related to its achievement. In the case of your salary, see yourself receiving this sum of money and feel the satisfaction related to its acquisition. As you are already in possession of the 5,000 US dollars, see and feel how the quality of your life would improve. See and feel and experience the pleasure related to your success. Your subconscious mind will get down to work to materialize what you see and truly feel. You now have the discipline and motivation to plough on even when the road to prosperity becomes uneven.

The message is once you know and can envision and can truly feel what you want, you will find the right way to take you there.