Do you want to achieve more personally? Professionally? As a parent? In your volunteer work? In a new endeavor? Do you want to wrap up your life to the echoes of “Well Done?
For me, clear goals give focus that helps me to be a better decision-maker, to be an excellent manager of time and resources, to clear a lot of unnecessary stuff from my life, and thus achieve more of the important.
Over the next few weeks, I am about to offer you some tactics which, if you practice them, make greater achievement a sure thing. The more skillfully you practice these tactics, the more surely and quickly you will achieve.
So, here’s the first tip and the How-tos:
Get crystal clear
about what you want to achieve.
The Big Picture
Establish a foundation for choosing between the good and the best by creating a written personal mission statement. Don’t expect that a 5-minute session will help you get clear about purpose. As you take time to identify your values, true beliefs, and your perceived reason for being on the planet, the statement will form in you. The time you give to this will return to you over and over.
Set Clear Intermediate Goals
Set goals in light of the bigger picture which are:
Specific
Measurable
Attainable
Realistic
Timely
If the goal you establish isn’t SMART. Rework it until it is.
Beware the Distractors
Some influences that can hold you back from establishing clear goals and making decisions in light of them are:
- Failure to appreciate the need for such clarity (unfortunately this is often a regret with real consequences later in life)
- Pressure from others about what they believe you are to be or do.
- Failure to reflect adequately or over-thinking.
- Low risk tolerance.
- Fear of not achieving
- Too busy. (These words are actually the refuge of the inefficient.)
- Failure to capitalize on our resources, such as strengths and styles assessments, insights of others, tools for developing goals, coaching, and investigating possibilities.
Many live on the waves of circumstance, moved through life from one happening to the next. An increasing number of people are in college and unclear about their goals, complete a college degree, enter a profession they don’t like and are still unclear. This often costs large amounts of money for experimentation.
The “goals” claimed by some are vague and lack benchmarks for achievement. As a result, they don’t know when they have arrived at wherever they were going.
Get crystal clear about what you want! It’s a sure-fire tactic for achieving more of what you want in life.
What has helped you in setting goals?
What is the most helpful tool you have used for identifying life purpose? For goal-setting?
Thanks for this. At the beginning of every semester I find myself needing to reevaluate where we are in ministry, where we are headed, where I am in ministry and where I am headed. Right now, I am well aware that I am headed for a crash landing, without the landing in the near future. Some health issues have left me with lots of physical pain that isn’t responding to much treatment we’ve tried. The pain has made me so uncomfortable at night that I can’t sleep more than 2 hours at a time. – Perfect recipe for hitting a wall – hard.
That said, I am working on setting ministry group goals and some personal goals (which are mostly set) for this next year. Some are a little bit of a stretch and some are a little more challenging. I believe firmly in setting goals that are along a spectrum of the ability to achieve. And, I’ve decided in setting goals that sometimes more is less. Focusing on two or three for the year makes me focus and get clear about the big picture. That helps me.
I am so grateful we had to come up with a personal mission statement in seminary. I have gone back to it time and again when I find myself in the wandering desert kind of place. Helps me remember who I am and who I want to be and what I want to do – because God has made me with those specific gifts, skills and interests. I am also really glad we had to create a profile of a disciple in class. For all the groaning and wanting to “get on with the project” that has been the most lasting part for me. I used it not as a class assignment, but as a tool I would use to help shape ministry for the rest of my life. Time and again (even in just two years) I’ve pulled it out and reflected on what is important to me in teaching and training and equipping in faith. That has helped me focus too!
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