Chapter 6

Step 6

Goals: They Make You

If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you.

Les Brown

If you're bored with life - you don't get up every morning with a burning desire to do things - you don't have enough goals.

Lou Holtz

I often come across people saying, “I’ll see how I score and how I perform and later decide what field I want to chose as my career”

“I have five options in mind and I will try each one of those and see which one is fruitful and continue the business in same”

All these are career related and very major issues in life.

There are few more regularly opted by people “I’ll see what time I want to get up in the morning”

And they’ll sit chatting on their mobiles or computers till late in the night doing nothing-useful wasting precious hours of life.

Reason: couldn’t sleep so I kept myself occupied till I was sleepy

Instead if he/she had made a goal that I’d get up at 7:00 am sharp.

I can bet on my dead body that his body and brain would have reacted in a manner that he would have had proper and sound sleep right on time.

This silly day-to-day example I am sorry was not to offend anyone; this was only to support the earlier bigger options.

Had the other two categories of people already decided what they wanted they would have acted accordingly.

They wouldn’t have been dependent on destiny

Rather they would have shaped their own destiny.

So the key word is GOAL

Goal: goal is something you decide for yourself, something you want to achieve, something that will keep you going, Goal therefore is your asset, your personal property.

Me, as a teenager like you all out there in the world around I am sure are always bothered about what others think and say.

Trust me I was bothered by the same to such an extent that I actually started doing things that I thought would get appreciation by others.

This fact sounds funny to my own ears and I am giggling while I am writing because the fact that what others [key word here being judgments] think about you bothers you a lot, so it did to me.

I would undoubtedly accept that it was the worst phase of my life; I had completed my high school and was in college, I had no goals in life and aimed only to enjoy my teen age.

Did I enjoy?

I guess I need not answer.

Later I wanted money *whispers(money to party with friends)*and therefore when I got an opportunity to tutor a girl for her MBA exams since she had very poor command in English I agreed and for me to teach her I needed to read the whole book first and therefore I had a GOAL now, goal to let the girl get good grades in the semesters she paid me for.

I worked hard for the same.

Then in the duration, one night we had power cut due to certain reasons, I had to deliver her the notes the very next day, which she had to analyze and rewrite and mail it by the evening itself.

I was in a fix.

 At 9 in the night with no option left, I picked the books and my sheets and went to the streetlight just outside my house and started working.

I was stared, people passing by chatted in whispers in front of me but it didn’t affect me, I had an aim, a goal that was more important than anything else.

Your goals give meaning to your life.

Yes! There is lot of stress, sometimes resentment and disappointment but it is the goals alone that keep you going.

Fact[taken from a published book ‘Winning Habits’#

There was once a airport with a very small runaway and the pilots would always struggle while landing their planes where- in there was another experience d and mature pilot who did his job easily and efficiently.

One of the new learners asked him “How do you do it with that ease and precision?”

The proficient pilot answered easily “While landing and take off I concentrate on the line in the center and match the nose of the plane in symmetry with that white thick line and therefore I do not find any difficulty.

Our goals are like that line on the runaway, they keep you focused and let you do your work with ease and efficiency.

This fact is complete in its own sense. I would not want to add another one to support the importance of Goal.

Goals are your assets.

They are life to your soul.

They keep you going, quitting is never an option when you have a fixed goal in life

Do’s

1.  Start with a goal of your own Today.

2.  Ask yourself if you really want to dedicate, your life, your effort and sleep for that very goal.

3.  Do thorough research, scrutiny and investigation of the goal that you are going to envisage in your life

4.  Divide your goals into smaller ones that you want to achieve and use them as milestones. You’ll be amazed at the contentment every time you cross that milestone.

For eg. Lets take the easiest one of reducing your weight.

If your goal is to reduce 10kgs, then your milestone should be 2or 2.5kgs and every while you achieve the milestone of losing that 2.5 kg, treat yourself and I don’t want to banged or kicked by asking you to treat yourself with meals, pizzas or ice creams instead treat yourself with movie shows or a new dress anything that pleases you.

If it is related to studies, treat yourself with a day out or pajama party with your friends.

5.  Respect and trust yourself and the goal you set for yourself, do not waiver with demoralizing words of others.

6.  Let your goal be inevitable part of your life.

7.  Offer gratitude each night to your goal and wake up with the same gratitude and enthusiasm of putting another step forward towards your goal.

Don’ts

1.  Do not underestimate ever your efficiency in achieving your goal

2.  Do not get demotivated by your failures

3.  In rough times convince yourself that quitting is never an option.

4.  Don’t be rigid in your goals, flexibility and change is life.

For eg. If you had a goal of making your own mobile application of a certain thing and after weeks of hard work you realize that some one on other part of the globe had done it just before you, don’t give up, bring flexibility into action, divert your actions.

5. Do not go for quantity in goals, opt for quality and meaningful goals

I have come across numerous people and anecdotes of how people achieved more than they had aimed for…

I still give the credit to the goal they had set for themselves.

They were their goals that kept them going and at a point of time they out smarted and outstepped their own goals, earning much much more.