A PERSONAL GOAL WITHOUT A PLAN IS JUST A WISH

Setting goals is very important in our personal and professional lives. If you don't know where you're headed, then any road will get you there. Setting goals will keep us focused and help us to reach that which we hope to achieve. They keep us moving forward and growing in our personal and professional lives.

I like to think of goals as the GPS for our lives. On a GPS system you enter a starting point and a destination. The GPS then gives you the road map on how to get to your destination and the time it's going to take to get you there. So when I say "a personal goal without a plan is just a wish", it is the equivalent to taking a trip without directions. Your chances on reaching your destination are greatly reduced or it will take you longer to get there than it should have.

Whether you are setting personal, professional or financial goals the principals are the same. Let's start with a simple personal goal first as an example. You have made a personal observation that you watch too much television and you have not read a book in years. The first thing you want to decide is how many books do you want to read and over what period of time. Make sure that whatever goals you set for yourself are achievable goals. If you set goals that are impossible to reach you are just going to get frustrated and quit. You decide that you want to read 24 books over the next year. You now have a starting point and a destination.

Remember, a personal goal without a plan is just a wish. So we need to come up with a plan of action. Let's use some basic math and break this down, in order to get through 24 books over the next year you will have to read 2 books every month. If you are going to read 2 books every month, you will have to read 1 book every 2 weeks. In order to read 1 book every 2 weeks you will need to read for 1 hour each night.

I have intentionally started a new paragraph here because we need to pause for a brief reality check. If we are going to grow and reach our goals whether it is personally or professionally it is going to require changes. Anything in life that is worth something is going to cost you something. It is going to require a conscious effort on your part to change your habits or lifestyle to move forward. Having said that, our original goal was to watch less television and read more. And we have determined that we need to read for 1 hour each night to reach our goal of 24 books in one year. I highly recommend that you schedule and set aside a specific time for this or you will find reasons to put it off or procrastinate and you will not reach your goal. So every night at 7:00 pm after dinner I am going to read until 8:00 pm instead of turning the television on. Now we have our road map to get from our starting point to our destination.

Again, this was a simple illustration but the principles are the same whether it is business goals, financial goals or personal goals. A more long-term example would be creating a 3 year or 5 year plan. I use to be responsible for multiple departments and I always had a 5 year goal for each department. Where did I want that department to be 5 years from now, and where would it need to be 3 years from now to reach that 5 year goal. I would break it on down to annually and monthly.

Evaluate where you are now, decide where you want to be and when, make your plan on how to get there and take action. On your mark... get set... GO!


A PERSONAL GOAL WITHOUT A PLAN IS JUST A WISH
Brought to you by micah udoh
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