Goals
This session, I’m going to discuss goals with you. The term ‘goals’ is another word you have probably heard lots of times in your life. Let me ask you a simple question: In the morning, when you turn the keys of your car, and you are ready to go out of your garage or driveway, you know where you are going. You don’t drive out of a driveway without knowing where you’re going.
Goals are same way. We just discussed the purpose. You have found your purpose. Now before you go on that journey, you need to know WHERE you are going and WHY are you going. If you don’t have certain goals set, you won’t even know when you get there! So just think about driving. You know where you started from and you know where you are going to end up. That is the power of the ‘goal.’
Now, let’s go back to your purpose and take that purpose as a guiding light to set your goals. Once your goals are set, based on your purpose, you have a better chance of accomplishing them.
Now, these goals have two parts to the whole process. One is ‘goal setting,’ and the second is ‘achieving your goal.’ The reason I’m going to separate these two into different cycles, is because lots of people set their goals, but they do not accomplish them. What happens is that you used all the love and passion to set your goals, and now you never reach them.
We all have heard about the New Year’s phenomena. That’s the most common, talked about subject on December 31st or January 1st. What are your goals? What are you going to do this year? And people set their goals. When January 1st comes, it is like a ritual. But if you don’t have a set of goals, it’s not good, so we have to set up goals.
Let’s go a little bit further and talk about January 31st. Do you still remember your goal, or is it already gone? Sure, you modified your life for three days. And by January 4th, it was back to Dunkin Donut and Baker’s Square, or whatever it is that your goal has dictated you to do or not do. And by the time January 15th has come, you do remember your goal, but vaguely. And when the February 1st comes, you have forgotten all about it.
And then what do we do? We make the next mistake. We say, “I have already given up for this year, so I’m going to wait 11 more months, and then I’ll set up my goal again.”
There is no magic to New Year’s Day as the ONLY day to set your goals, and I don’t even know who started it. I did lots of research. I could not find anywhere who set up January 1st as the day to write goals. I have no idea. To me, it is just a different day on the calendar; that’s all it is.
So, goal setting does not have to be tied down to the calendar. It does not have to be done in January. You can do your goal setting today, no matter what month it is.
Now, why should we allow our personal forgetfulness or frustration or immediate discouragement to keep us from trying to pursue our goal? What are the factors that stop us, and cause us to abandon our goals so easily?
Aren’t you frustrated with the yo-yo cycle of weight loss? The reason I pick that as an example, is that it seems to be one of top priority in people’s minds. We set up the goal that we want to lose a certain number of pounds. We do well for two or three days, and then we are back to the same cycle. So what are the reasons that made you abandon that goal which you have set up?
Goal setting requires serious thought. Goal setting requires energy. Goal setting requires your conviction and action. Any goal, which is set up, and not followed with an action, you’re not going to accomplish. So action is the key!
But before we actually discuss your action cycle, choosing your goal also require some systemic way of applying it. Goal setting, as a rule, is a very normal thing to do. Remember, your spirit is always looking for further expression. We are living beings, and we are supposed to be setting goals. We are inherently set up to analyze our lives. I’m sure that in many aspects of my life, some are very satisfying, and some are dissatisfying. It becomes my responsibility that, instead of continuing my life with those dissatisfying factors, to change them into satisfying experiences. And the one way you can do it, is to take the area of dissatisfaction and apply some goals to them.
Now, you know you already have your purpose. And once you have the purpose, it will guide you to set your goal. Once you know what your purpose is, then you start setting your goal of how to accomplish your purpose.
Goals really are not very long-term. Your purpose is for life, but the goal should always change, modify, and improve as you accomplish one step at a time. Your purpose is the firm guiding light; the goal just helps you achieve the purpose one step at a time.
The other mistake we make is settling for less than we deserve. Settling for less than we have power to accomplish. We take the problem areas of our life and we try to ignore them. It’s like cleaning your house. Take all the junk and put it in the closet and lock it, and hopefully your guests won’t open it. When they open it, then there is disaster.
In life, you don’t have a door on the closet. Your problems that are inside always show on the outside. So how do you solve those problems? The way you make dissatisfaction disappear and make it into satisfaction is by setting goal. When you go on this journey of setting goals, you are going to find out it’s a lot easier said than done. But I can guarantee you – I can promise you – you have all the capabilities right now, no matter where you are, to reach your goals and achieve the life you really want to.
Remember, this is your life. You have your personal purpose. And what you have to do, whatever goal you write, you support your personal purpose with it. Don’t deviate from the purpose. Once you deviate from the purpose, you become less able to accomplish your goals.
I will give you an example with an eagle. An eagle does not build her nest in a bunch of shrubbery outside a bear’s cave. An eagle wants to see her egg live a full survival cycle. She wants her baby to hatch, survive and grow. This is her annual goal. But it’s directly connected to one of her primary purposes of life, and that is to see her chicks grow to normal life. So she builds her nest on the highest cliff she can find, so all that can destroy that nest is avoided as much as possible.
You have to do a similar thing with your goal. Have your purpose guide your goal setting. You are no different than an eagle. You have spent your life, to date, based on certain values. These values were either installed in you or you created them yourself. Now, if you set your goals which do not match your values and do not match your purpose, you are doomed to fail. That is one very important reason why people do not accomplish their goals.
If I have no interest in losing weight, and I wanted to lose weight just to make someone happy, so I can fit in that uniform or clothes for a certain occasion and wedding, it is a very short-lived purpose and I really have no passion in it. That’s why so many people are fighting every day to lose the weight, and they never get there. And if they do get there, they gain it right back.
Can you experience that in your heart right now? Can you connect with that concept? Just evaluate the things in your life that you are unhappy about. You took an oath to change them but in no time you quit. So this is the reason when people set a goal that they never accomplish the goal.
If your goal has been set up with a halfhearted try, you are not going to be interested for a long time. With only a halfhearted try, you won’t be able to achieve such a big goal. So, set your goal with total passion and your full heart in it, and then you have a very high possibility of completing it.
I’m going to remind you again, setting goals and accomplishing goals are two cycles, which are totally separate. You can set a goal and use certain principles to set them. Then, and only then, you will be able to achieve them. Does that make sense to you? This is to give you some idea of why so many times we have fallen off the cliff from our beautifully set goals. Does that give you some sense of it? Can you feel it right now? So let’s use this newly acquired knowledge about goal setting, and let’s start changing your life because you are the one who has to live with it. You might as well make it as much fun and enjoyable as you can.
If you set your goal halfheartedly with the lack of passion, lack of purpose, and lack of value, it’s not going to occur. So let those things go. Just go on a journey. Open your mind. Remember your purpose, and start setting goals. See how every day you can accomplish each part of your purpose. Once you set your goal, which is based on your passion, value, and purpose, you have a very high chance of achieving that.
It’s quite possible that when you start working on your goal, you’re going to come across some obstacles. You’re going to come to some interference. What are you going to do? Are you going to drop it at that minute? No. You’re not going to do that.
Think of it as though you are going to a wedding party in a city where there is lots of traffic. On the way, you find out that the highway you are going to take it closed. What would you do? Would you go back home? I don’t think so. You just find a detour. That is the same thing you do with the goal. When you find obstacles or find interference, change your plan. Don’t abandon your goal; just change the route.
Now there’s one other thing that might happen to you. Every goal you set up, you find out is happening to you, and you are accomplishing them every day. That’s not something to be happy about. That’s not something to be enthusiastic about. If every goal you have set is just coming to you too easily, that simply means this:
You probably have set your goals too low. You have set goals in such a way that in your heart you know you are going to accomplish, and you don’t want disappointment. So you set up a goal that looks easy and simple. Sure it’s going to come to you easily, but is that going to change your life? I don’t think so. Your goal has to be something that makes you uncomfortable and that makes you restless. That’s when it’s fun.
I’ll share a story with you about my goal setting. I was supposed to talk to my coach on a set schedule to discuss my goals. We had booked one hour for that appointment. Of course, precisely on time, I called him, and I was ready to start telling him about my goal. He asked me a very strange question. He said, “Anil, did you sleep peacefully last night?” I said, “Yes. I slept very well.” He said, to my surprise, “I’m going to hang up the phone. Our session is over.” I was very shocked. And he said, “The reason it’s over, you have set your goal too low. And if you set your proper goal, you should have been uncomfortable all night thinking, “How the heck am I going to do it?” And my session ended. And before I could respond, he had hung up on me and was gone.
Can you see the value of setting the higher goals? So goals should make you somewhat uncomfortable. Goals should be set that in your present condition right now you think you cannot accomplish. Goals should be something that are based on value, but gives you a little bit of the chills. You can feel some butterflies in your stomach, which can give you a little bit of an uncomfortable feeling. Then you have probably set the right goal.
When I set up my goals for my professional life, for my practice, I had set up a goal to have a growth of 20% next year. I gave a whole year to have 20% growth, and that was one part of the goal of why my mentor had hung up on me. He said, “Why are you going to work hard and recreate all the changes just to have 20% growth? That sucks.” He said, “You’re going to go through this whole exercise, you’re going to modify your habits, you’re going to invest time and energy. Why would you strive only for 20%? How about going for 100%? How about going 200%?”
The idea is: Set goals that are higher. The idea is not just to achieve a goal, which you already know you can do, the idea is to take your life, your personal and professional, to the next level. That’s what goal setting is all about. And that’s the quantum growth I was looking for. Sure it made me uncomfortable.
The next question, which came to my mind, which also kept me up for a few nights, was “how the heck am I going to do it?” My awareness was not at that level. With my present awareness, I could not see how I was going to do a 100%, 200% growth.
Well, let me give you some friendly advice here. Don't question yourself, and don't worry about it. The universe has everything that is happening. You have to just be willing to act and get it, and it's going to come to you. And now when I go back and look at my mental status at that time, I laugh at it. I said, "My God, look what happened." I was able to accomplish that goal because it has the value; it has the passion. It didn't have direct self-motive in it. The motive was, through my growth, helping other people. Your rewards in life are going to be exactly equal to the amount of service and the type of service you provide to others. You have to be willing to ask and graciously receive.
When you write your goals, sure you have to be selfish up to only a certain degree. But make sure your goals also encompass the survival, the goodwill, and benefit to others. Andrew Carnegie, one of the world's richest men who left a big legacy behind, understood the value of passion and commitment when it came to setting goals. That's what he said: "I have a definite plan for acquiring those riches. I am engaged in carrying out my plan. And I'm giving an equivalent in useful service of the value to those riches I demand." I have Andrew Carnegie's saying hanging in my office to remind me the value of passion and commitment in achieving my goals.
So can you see the gist of it? He wasn't thinking about himself alone. He wanted to give back to others, and that's just the way it is. Your goal should include other people and how you are going to benefit and improve their lives.
Now, let me share with you some basic principles of goal setting. When we set a goal, we have to have these components in them to accomplish the results. It has to be motivating. That is a must. Don't set up a goal because somebody else wants you to accomplish something. Why do YOU want to accomplish that goal?
I am going to again pick on weight loss because that is a number one passion right now. Why do YOU want to lose weight? What is YOUR motivation for doing this? And do you believe in that motivation? Do you really have passion for it? That's the only time it's going to work.
The same thing about finances, if you want to have X amount of dollars in your checkbook, you have to have motivation as to why do you want it. What is the motivating factor for you to have that? It has to be somewhat realistic, not totally realistic, because if you set a goal, which is totally realistic, you'll end up setting it very low since you haven't yet experienced what you're capable of achieving.
So don’t set a goal that is totally realistic. Go into a dream. Go into your desire, and set your goals that are unrealistic the way you see them now. When I set up my goal, every time I set them up realistically, they were no fun. You have to live on the edge. And if you’re not living on the edge, you’re occupying too much space on this earth. So let’s become unrealistic and set up the goal from your dreams and ignore the present facts.
Now what is the difference between a dream and goal? Very simple: Dreams don’t have a deadline, goals do. I can dream all day. Without a deadline, they are not my goals. So in your goal, you have to incorporate a deadline that by a certain day or a certain year or certain month, I am going to accomplish that. If you don’t have deadline, it is just dreaming.
Your goal also has to be very specific and described. Why? To just say I want to be happy is not a goal. Happiness is the status of mind. This you can experience. Nobody else can. If I say I would like to have $5,000 in my checking account by November 1st, that is specific.
Your goal also should be such that it can be measured, not only by you, but also by others. So the idea here is when we set a goal without passion, we set a goal without these five guidelines and therefore you have a very high chance of abandoning it. So what are those five guidelines?
- It has to be motivational.
- It has to have a deadline.
- It has to be very specific.
- It has to be measurable, and
- It has to be somewhat unrealistic.
Now we come to the next step of goal setting and that is to prioritize your goals. How are you going to do that? You take all your goals, which are driven from your values and your dreams, and write down all those goals on a piece of paper. My recommendation is to write down a minimum of 30 goals.
Now I would like you to take those 30 goals and divide them into three categories: A, B, and C. A happens to be your most important goals, and then B, and then C in that sequence. Once you have done that, put your B and C list away, and go back to your A list. Now you prioritize those A goals from one to ten (or more, but you don’t want more than 15 on the A list) in a sequence, and pretty soon you’re going to have what I call your “A1 goal.” So now you're going to focus only on your A1 goal. Now it's going to happen that many goals might come in there and overlap each other, but that’s not your focus right now. Your focus is on the A1 goal.
Your mind is going to ask you a question when you do that. ‘Hey! I have my A1 goal. How the heck I’m going to do it? What am I supposed to do first? Where should I start?’ When those questions came to my mind, I did one thing. I refused to entertain those thoughts because your inner voice, your universe will show you how to do it.
Sometimes we put lots of energy into planning and trying to answer how. Don’t get caught in the cycle of planning and how, because once you take the first step, that is action. You start acting upon it. And once you start acting upon it, the next stage will come to you, and you’ll know what to do next. That’s just how it always works. That’s how this universe is set up.
So don’t question and don’t doubt the universe of principles. They have worked for everyone, and they’re going to work for you. At the point of commitment, the universe conspires in your favor.
Let’s do a quick review here, and I want to add some simple pointers. Remember that setting goals is not the objective. Setting goals is only the starting point. The objective is to set the goals and then accomplish them. So these pointers will help you further in accomplish your goal.
- Write down your goals on a piece of paper, and make a habit of reviewing them on a regular basis. By doing this you are putting discipline into the system, and you are creating a belief in yourself. So every time you see the written goal, it is going to give you more motivation and more strength to accomplish it.
- Always maintain a positive attitude. When the interference’s and obstacles come your way, don’t let them discourage. Just have that feeling that ‘I’m going to do and it’s going to happen,’ and it will. That’s the value of maintaining positive attitude.
- Celebrate your success. I am very guilty of doing something for which I might have paid a little price. I have no regrets about it however, because I don’t go into the past and have regrets about it. What it is, is that whenever I accomplish something, I already started thinking about how I could do better, how I can go to next goal without acknowledging my success, without celebrating my success, without enjoying my success. I was being very hard on myself. Don’t make that mistake. Take the time to enjoy your success no matter how small it is. By doing this, you are giving the food to your mind and your soul, and that will create more energy when you go to the next level.
- The final tip I have for you in goal setting is called ‘sustained implementation.’ That means, when you are closer to accomplishing your A1 goal, go to A2, go to A3, go to A4. And once you reach C30, that’s the last goal in third list, don’t stop there. Now go back and rewrite your new goals, and you are going to start having fun.
Your dedication, your commitment, combined with action cycles, will help you accomplish those goals. Those New Years’ emotional decisions will no longer be forgotten by January 1st or 31st. They’re going to stay there for life. And one after another, you will see that your life is not the same, and you are living it to its fullest.
This is Dr. A and, thank you.