“Success is goals and all else is commentary”

“Success is goals and all else is commentary” – few years ago, a senior friend and mentor wrote these lines in a book he gifted me. These simple words have the crux of life. These simple words had an amazing effect on me and changed my perspective towards my life and my understanding of Goals. 

Most of us just drift into 

the ocean of time like a lifeless piece of wood, riding on the waves of the ocean, we drift and wherever we are drifted ashore, we mark that as our destination.

Some of us confuse goals with path. “What is your goal?” When I ask this question to my younger friends and they would say “well, after finishing my studies, I plan to do my post grad in …”  when I persist with my question, they look at me strangely for asking the obvious, and say – “then I will apply for a job” and looking at my still ignorant face they proudly claim, “I will pursue a career in marketing”. I leave them at that. 

What these friends defined as goals, is a path to earn a living, which is very natural, a person would find a means

of earning and living to support himself and his family, that support might come from working in the field of marketing or doing the job of a teacher.  

Please note I didn’t write being a teacher. Being a teacher could be a goal, but doing a job of a teacher may not. To put it in another way, A teacher does all the job of a teacher, but a person doing all the jobs of a teacher may still be not a teacher. You are a teacher when teaching is your goal, and you happen to make a living out of it.  Many of us join teaching profession just to earn a living, not for being a teacher. So, teaching was not a goal, it was just a mean to earn a living.

This socially conditioned zombie like mechanical robotic movement lands most of us in the wrong jobs. Sometime ago, the online job portal monster.com had a TV ad campaign, where they showed a cricketer clad in full cricketing gear, is using his bat to wash clothes. There are many advertisement on YouTube from monster, I suggest you watch them, may be it helps you reset your goals, or reinstate your faith in the already set goals.

How do we identify our goal? Goals can’t be prescribed, they should be decided and owned by the individual.

Your goals should be big enough, bold enough, and exciting enough, to turn you on. Goal is something which consumes you, about which you think day in day out. Just check, whatever you are considering as your goal, does this goal fits into the description. If your goal does fit the description and point you in the right direction, you’ll notice that some strange things will start to happen. You’ll start to get excited about taking your goals on, you’ll start to get better at what you do, and doors will start opening for you.

Out of constructive goal orientation springs self-discipline, and from self-discipline comes a personal freedom cantered around high achievement. This process of choosing worthy goals and dedicating yourself to them completely is pretty much identical to the process of developing that old fashioned, and timeless, virtue known as “good character.”

Its not a lack of talent, but a lack of goals, that causes one’s life to stagnate. As they say - “People don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan”. As our daily goals, our commitment to fulfil them, and our confidence in our own ability to fulfil them all increases, our future life style improves. As we believe more deeply in our goals, we believe more deeply n ourselves, and life gets better.

The size of our past goals (if you really had them) has determined our present life style. The size of our future goals will determine our future life style. It’s as simple as that.

When we make a commitment to accomplishment – not to waiting passively for change, like that floating piece of wood, but to making change happen through organized planning – the resulting improvement in morale becomes a vote of confidence for our life. In fact, I think this improvement in morale is the difference between real life and simple existence. We benefit not only from the achievement itself, but from an upward surge in morale. That’s why I believe that the very first step in morale-building must be the development of a plan that excites and motivates.

Your goal can have many sub goals, which help you achieve and accomplish your final goal. These sub goals are your small victory opportunities which will enthuse you with excitement and will motivate you to work even harder and with even greater diligence. A goal’s main purpose is to help develop undeveloped potential. The goal motivates us to action. We work hard to overcome obstacles, and the achieved goal becomes a reward for the effort extended and the growth realized. There’s a wonderful boost in morale, and the cycle begins again. This cycle is self-sustaining self-running cycle. We don’t have to look for the “fuel”” that moves this cycle forward.

Constructive goals are not limiting; they are liberating. Only goals that point you toward unhealthy or unethical outcomes are exhausting. One of the most important gear during your long and arduous but exciting journey towards your goal, is the moral compass. You should always keep your moral compass handy and keep checking your direction; are you drifting away? Unfortunately, many people spend large chunks of their lives pursuing these negative objectives. They either forgot to carry their moral compass or just misplaced it, because sometimes checking with compass makes your journey little longer, so you might feel enticed to throw away the compass to reach to your “goal” faster.  No, by doing this you don’t reach your goal you just create a mirage of goal, journey towards which will never end and leave you completely drained, exhausted but you will realize when it is too late to change course or come back to the point from where you drifted.

In my previous posts, I wrote quite a lot about failures, setbacks and how they are part of our journey towards success, in fact they are the training sessions which groom us for our journey ahead. The goals that you set should test your ability, should make you stretch to your limit, and once you achieve that goal by stretching yourself, stretch a little more and set next goal. If you are confirmed about your goal, don’t reset it to shorter height because someone just added a bit of doubt in your mind about your capability. May be a mister defeat has thrown a cursory remark on your capability. Experiencing temporary setbacks is not a crime. Low aim is. So, what, are you aiming for? Your goals should make sense for where you’ve been, where you are now, and where you’re headed. A person without constructive goals is truly blinded, because he or she can’t see the best possible future.

Be sure you set goals that are

1.      Exciting
2.      Realistic
3.      Measurable
4.      Attainable

The best goals will energize you and motivate you to act. Goals will bring your life’s energy into focus. Dreaming without ever focusing, will dissipate your precious energy and waste your precious time. Goals without deadlines or timeline are just dreams or wishful thinking. Think of goals as “dreams with deadlines”.

Your goals should be too exciting, too powerful, too rooted in what you already find exhilarating, for you to ignore. If the goal doesn’t motivate you instantly, it needs to be revised.

Your goals could be different for different aspect of your life, they could be financial goals, life style goals, family goals, personal growth. A financial goal might be what you wish to earn in next couple of years, next 5 years or later. Your life style goal would relate to the way you choose to live, your family goal would revolve around your loved ones.

Write down your goals in each area and evaluate what are you doing today which will take you nearer to your specified goal. Keeping visiting your notebook at least once a week, to check whether you are navigating all right towards your goal.

On you mark. Get, Set, Go!!