In the second part of my four-part series on achieving goals, I explore another area that must be asked of oneself to ensure success. This step involves asking the question “What do I want?” Clarification on the answer to this question should enlighten you to the main purpose of going after the goal in the first place.
It’s difficult to achieve tasks. Granted, smaller tasks can be taken care of quickly. Yet, others take more time, planning and resources. The critical step before embarking on a goal, especially if it’s complicated and has many factors involved, is to start the process and evaluate the goal before you start.
Gain a Deeper Understanding of Your Motivation
When you gain deeper understanding of your motivations, then you have a better chance with follow-through on daily tasks that are involved in completing your goals. It’s always nice to follow-through with a goal, but you need to figure out if the energy that you’ll be putting in the tasks, daily efforts and planning will be worth it.
For example, if you have a goal of getting into shape, will it be worth running a full marathon or simply creating a home health program of hiking, cycling and lifting weights consistently throughout the week? Both come with the cost of time, energy and money. What will you get out of both?
As stated previously, a critical exercise that I give to my coaching clients before we undertake the process of going after the goal is to evaluate the goal itself. Once these questions are answered, then can we begin the journey together without surprises, which limits the road-blocks along the way.
What Do You Want?
Ask the ordinary person and they’ll tell you what they don’t want. Examples of these answers are “I don’t like my job” or “my partner doesn’t understand me” or “I don’t enjoy going to my gym so I stopped exercising.” Most people understand more clearly know what they don’t want because pain, as explained in the previous article, Boosting Your Success Rate with Achieving Goals – Part 1, is an excellent communicator to one self.
Are you willing to have the courage to start on your goals? Or is it that you’re simply frustrated with some areas in your life and you want to whine these emotions to friends. And that’s great. Find a friend, grab a beer and download. You are trying to determine how important getting the goal is to you and how much energy you will be putting towards achieving it.
Clarify Your What
For example, maybe your friends and colleagues are driving new, expensive cars. It’s always nice to pull up in the parking lot with a new BMW or Audi. It’s an instant ego-booster. The “what” could be described as prestige and could also be the benefit of being seen as affluent and successful. Perhaps at this time in your life, you need a boost and want to gain the respect of your peers.
At this point, it’s critical to ask another question “at what cost?” What are the costs involved in achieving this goal? Higher monthly payments? Triple the repair expense of your current Japanese car? Working extra hours to cover these costs? Less money to put into your daughter’s college fund?
If you can define the end result of accomplishing your goal, such as prestige, then can determine the choices of how to obtain it. The end result should be similar. Instead of buying a new car, maybe your peers will respect you more if you make time for an hour a day to tutor an employee on new skills in your organization. Another idea is to volunteer to organize sports games with low-income families. Both could boost your ego and gain respect. Now that you clarified your “what”, the choices become much greater on the path of achieving the goal.
Read more articles on how to achieve goals:
How do I achieve my 2021 goals?
How can I gain more clarity on my business strategy?