Seven reasons why settings goals is critical to success
When a goal is in place, the standard has been set and your destination made clear. Even though the route may change, the objective has been determined
Royston Guest
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Do you know where you are going in life or are you just hoping life leads you in the right direction? Making a commitment to your goals will fuel your success and jet-propel you into the life of which you dream. Reading time: 4 minutes; 13 seconds
Seven reasons why setting goals is critical to success
In the Lewis Carroll classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, there’s a telling exchange between Alice and the sinister Cheshire cat: One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. Screenshot 2021-03-02 at 21.11.12.png88.2 KB
Having a direction gives you something to aim at; a purpose and meaning to your actions and a means of measuring whether you’re on track and how much progress you’re making. Without one, as the Cheshire cat says, you can walk in any random direction along any pathway.
One: Goals create focus and direction
Where focus goes, energy flows. As human beings, we have an abundance of latent potential just waiting to be unlocked. Focused goals are the magic key to unlocking the door to the source of power: all your resources, including your mindset, physiology and whole being, hotwired to the attainment of your biggest, boldest dreams and goals.
Two: Goals give your life meaning and purpose
The first question you ask yourself in the morning and every subsequent question during the day is answered when you have goals. Why am I getting up? What am I going to do first? What is the order and attitude of the day going to be? Why does it matter?
Goals infuse your life with purpose and meaning, giving you the knowledge that you’re on the right path to attaining your most prominent ideals.
Three: Goals challenge you to grow
Goals are the enabler for personal growth. They take you outside your comfort zone. I challenge you to set goals that make you feel comfortably uncomfortable, stretching the boundaries of your possibilities and allowing you to become the best you can be. Growth.jpg146 KB
Four: Goals drive you to take action
It’s easy to drift in life and sleepwalk through your days. If you don’t act on life, life has a habit of acting on you. With goals fixed, you dictate the pace, the cadence and the rhythm. Whether it’s billionaires, entrepreneurs, captains of industry, elite athletes or anyone else at the top of their game, one of the primary traits of great people is that they are action-oriented. They make stuff happen. Their days are consumed with thinking about their biggest, boldest goals and a relentless drive to take daily actions that turn them into reality.
Five: Goals allow you to keep score
What’s the difference between Lewis Hamilton achieving pole position in a Formula One race and ending up on the second row of the grid? Or Usain Bolt winning Olympic gold in the 100-metre race rather than coming second, or even fifth? It’s often no more than one-tenth of a second.
In sport and life, tiny fractions of time or distance make the difference between a medal and no medal. Achieving success is often about zeroing in and managing those tiny fractions, hunting out places where you can make marginal gains. To put it simply: people who keep records break records.
In life, you’ve got to keep score. It enables you to measure the distance between your position today and the point at which you began. These quantifiable milestones will build momentum and continue to motivate you towards your end game.
Six: Goals allow you to replicate your successes
Success formulas are a perfect way to apply winning techniques that will allow you to deliver predictable, repeatable, sustainable results every time. The moment you raise your conscious awareness of it, you can start replicating it in other areas of your life for accelerated success.
Seven: Goals offer inspiration
Goals breathe life into your days. We all have days when we wake up a little groggy, where everything feels like the movie Groundhog Day, and when our enthusiasm and motivation just haven’t kicked in yet. But the moment you switch your attention to your personal ‘why’, your definition of success, your goals, you press an ignition switch that sparks you into action.
The very act of articulating your goals on a crisp white piece of paper causes you to step into a whole new world of possibility for what your life can become.
Setting your goals is a statement that you refuse to be ordinary
Setting your goals is a bold play for your best life
Setting your goals is an act of heroism because you are reaching for the potential sitting inside you. As Mark Twain noted: ‘If everyone were satisfied with themselves, there would be no heroes.’
take action; achieve more
Commit yourself to applying the seven rules to your life. Don't beat yourself up if you fail or need to realign. If you aren't reaching your goals, change your direction, not your dreams
Write it down and monitor your progress; it is important to see progress, even small steps. Marginal gains soon add up, so don't lose momentum
Goals breed success, so make progress every day and reap the benefits of your focus and drive. You can do this!
