Goal Setting sounds like a big commitment and too much work. Often, people run away from the term goal setting or avoid setting it, thinking that it is a whole lot of boring tasks.
However, consider goal setting as a ‘magic wand’ which can make your dreams come true, whether big or small. If you are wondering and scratching your head because I used the word ‘magic wand’ for goal setting, then I caught you doing it. 😃 Stay with me a little while till I tell you why ‘goal setting’ is a ‘magic wand’ and how you can use this wand by setting goals for yourself and improving your life.
To begin, let’s think of a tour of a particular city that you want to visit. Think your yourself as starting your tour in that city, but without planning in advance (like deciding on which places you will visit in that city). Instead, randomly choose places in the city to visit. Does it sound exciting to you? If it does, then let me tell you about the future of such tours.
Initially, you might be excited about the tour, choosing places to visit randomly. However, soon this excitement will fade away as you have to decide everything (hotel to stay, restaurant, places to visit next) on the go. Lots of decision-making can drain your energy level soon. You may also run out of time.
Going this way with randomness, you might end up choosing places that were not worth your time. You might be left with not enough time to visit important places that you actually might have visited if you have planned the tour in advance.
Without proper planning and direction, if a small tour can be a big failure, then think about your life. How would your life turn without setting a direction and a proper plan?
Such mess-ups can happen to your life when you lead your life without setting a direction or goal for yourself. You end up doing things randomly, draining yourself, wasting your time on unnecessary things and do not achieve anything in return.
Now let’s see how your life will be changed if you set a goal
1. You would start to reflect on what you exactly want.
Often, we keep on chasing these random things or random trends rather than asking ourselves, ‘What exactly do we want to do in our life?’,
Say, for example, if someone tells us that some profession can earn good money, we start chasing that profession. If something is trending today on the internet, like NFT, we stop what we are doing and start chasing the trends.
But the truth is, doing things randomly doesn’t bring the success we want. I am not saying that following trending things is wrong, but it must be followed with consistency till you get success on it. Not like doing something today and, after a few days, following another trend.
For success in anything, you need ‘consistency’ and ‘patience’ in doing one thing. When you set a goal, you can pause and reflect to think about what exactly you want and make a road map to achieve that.
Here are 7 Simple Steps to Set Goals & Achieve Success.
2. You would get directions to proceed to succeed.
Once you know ‘what you want’, it becomes extremely easy to chase it. You won’t end up chasing random things. Your chances of losing track will reduce to almost nil. As you proceed in the correct direction, your small efforts will add up and become a series of successes.
3. You would set a proper routine to get the desired result.
In order to achieve the goal, you have to set aside a fixed time duration to work on your goal. You probably must set a proper routine and timetable to work on a goal. This way, you will be more organized toward goals as well as in other areas of life too.
4. Your mindset would change from randomly wasting time to utilizing your time well.
Once you decide and dedicate yourself to achieving something, immediately your mindset shift happens on not letting your goal fails. You will definitely refrain from doing things randomly and wasting your time on unnecessary things. Since in the back of your mind, there is one thing going on which says not to let yourself short on your decided goals.
5. You would become well aware of your priorities on hand.
When you set a goal, you have to define tasks to do on a daily basis, and so you have to set priorities for yourself. In order to achieve your goal’s task, you will become very particular in choosing/selecting a request that comes your way. You might not be able to entertain all the requests that come your way, so you might choose to reschedule, redirect, or at times say NO to some requests too.
When you have no target or goal set, everything that comes your way looks like a priority, as you don’t have a defined set of priorities for yourself. So you tend to say YES to each and every request that comes your way.
For example, (1) if at home a neighbor asks you to have small talk or gossip as he/she is feeling upset, you leave everything aside and start gossiping. (2) At the office someone is facing a problem, ask for help instead of redirecting the request to someone else who might be the best one to help him/her; you directly jump to help, leaving your in-hand task pending. (3) If a not-so-important phone call comes, you immediately pick it up and start chit-chatting.
In all 3 cases, things could have been redirected, rescheduled, or, at worst, avoided by saying NO, only if you have your goal set for yourself.
You would respond to all requests that come your way with ‘YES’ since you do not know what other important things you might be doing. However, with a target in hand, you have an idea of what important tasks/priorities are there on your list at the moment to achieve your goal.
Do not misunderstand me, I am not saying to NOT help others, but I am insisting not to help others AT YOUR OWN LOSS. The important thing to notice here is we are unknowingly making ourselves this loss. However, this loss can only be avoided if we know our daily priorities, which goal setting can help us determine.
Conclusion
Hope this article has helped you understand the importance of goal setting. Please remember you are just a goal-setting away from getting the desired outcome.
You can dig deep into the subject of goal setting with the book Goal To Success. This book (having pages less than 120) is written in story narration and does not have fluff to bore you about goal setting.
This book can provide a road map to people who want to achieve more in life in spite of their busy schedules. It is a to-the-point guide to help you determine your goals (even if you do not know what your goal should be) and strategies to achieve those goals faster (even if you are super busy in your life).
Don’t wait, and grab your copy of GOAL TO SUCCESS here.
Poonam Bhatt is a mother, former IT professional, blogger, writer, and author of a book Goal To Success. She is currently located in India. She is an avid reader. She runs a blog: https://liveituplife.com, where you can read her posts about self-help, parenting, and book summaries. You can contact Poonam Bhatt on her Instagram or LinkedIn. For any writing-editing-related work, you can contact her at ps_52000@yahoo.co.in.
