Identifying Your Goals

In a recent blog post I wrote about stalled goals and how to regenerate them.

Many people have stalled goals, so I am sure this was very helpful to many of my readers.  But also many people don't really have "proper" goals at all.

How about you?  What are your main goals?  Not goals for your business (whether it belongs to you or you are simply an employee).  Not goals you have for others (your partner or your children for example).  Yes, you need business and family goals, but you also need real personal goals.  So what are your personal goals?

At this point I know I will have lost some of my readers, as when they look at their stated goals they realize they don't have any personal goals, just goals for others.  If you are in that group, bear with me.

Now let's have a look at those personal goals and see how real they are.

Firstly, hands up those who gave a monetary goal.  Perhaps an amount of money in the bank (maybe $1 Million?).  Or a regular amount you want to receive every month or every year?  If your hand is up, let me be a bit controversial.  What you have isn't a real goal at all!  It may be a way you can achieve the goal, but it isn't a goal in itself.  Unfortunately, though, many people try to turn this means to an end into the end itself.  Wanting to gain a certain amount of money in order to achieve an end goal is not a bad thing.  But wanting to gain that money with no other aim other than simply to have the money is not a good thing.  Not a good thing at all!

If you felt your goal was a certain amount of money, I would like you to start digging deeper.  Why do you want that money?  What will you use it for?  What will it change in your life?  Whatever answers you get to those questions, as long as those answers inspire you, then those are your real goals, not the money.  Some people will probably feel I am splitting hairs here, and that it doesn't matter what you want the money for, that first you want to get the money and then you can decide how to use it.  You could not get further from the truth!  Your goal has to inspire you.  It has to be a real goal.  Money is NOT a real goal.  It doesn't hurt to include it as one of your goals, but only as a minor goal and not your main target.

The reality is that although money can be used to get whatever it is you want to have, it is not usually the only possible way to get it.  Maybe it is the most likely way - it probably is.  But it is not the ONLY way.  And on the basis of that well-known quote "the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil" (1 Timothy 6:10) I urge you not to put your main emphasis on simply acquiring wealth without knowing why you want to acquire it and exactly how you plan to use it.

Many people, when they first realize the mistake they have made in confusing wealth and their real goals, suddenly find they have true goals that they didn't really recognize before.  Goals that really excite them.  And even in some cases goals that don't need any greater wealth for them to be achievable.

Secondly, hands up those who gave what, frankly, they would consider an unrealistic goal.  Often this mistake is compounded by being a monetary goal too.  Back to our $1 Million in the bank account when, perhaps, you have a minimum wage job and no more money in your account than is needed for this month's expenses.  Whether the unrealistic goal is a monetary goal or not, if you see it as unrealistic you should modify it.

Notice I have said "if you see it as unrealistic".  Not "if it is unrealistic".  The key factor here is what you truly believe is possible, not what IS possible.  I happen to believe that everything is possible.  But that doesn't mean I will try working towards goals that I know make me flinch when I state them, with an inner belief that this is not achievable for me yet.  Everything is possible, but many of those possibilities are an end goal that seems too far away to excite us into trying to achieve it now.

Identify your personal goals, examine them, ensure they excite you, and ensure they don't elicit from you an immediate reaction that they are not possible.  As a result of this examination, don't be afraid to change those goals.  Your goals should always be evolving anyway.  The goals you have today are most unlikely to be the same goals you had five years ago, and are just as unlikely to be the same goals you will have in five years' time.  If you didn't immediately come up with any goals, then now is the time to try finding some.  Identify real personal goals and, trust me, you will find your life is more meaningful - and the meaning will make you happier.

Work towards real, personal goals, and as you move closer to them and achieve some of them, replace them with other, perhaps more ambitious goals.