Where are you on the path towards what you really want?”
~Oprah Winfrey
The next few posts are about setting up authentic goals, targets, outcomes or destinations. I use these terms and others interchangeably throughout the series for reasons I will explain later.
For the last two months I’ve been sifting through goal-setting programs from about a dozen of the top success movement researchers, authors, trainers and coaches. Much of the information is based on classical goal setting strategies that have been popular for the last 50+ years, “Be specific, put your goals in writing, make the goals big, make them realistic and set a deadline”.
We have a lot of training programs on this subject and still 92% of us will fail to reach our goals by year's end. By early February, 80% will have quit trying. I believe the reason is simple. Most of us are really striving to reach goals set by someone else. Often our goals come from the culture. Our parents and teachers set most of our goals when we’re young. Peer pressure moves into the driver's seat as we move into the teen years. As we move to the university classroom or the corporate boardroom, we still have other people setting most of the goals for us.
If you want to change the game and start reaching your targets with consistency, you must begin setting goals that flow from your strengths. You must pick, plan and pursue goals that are connected to your natural passion, potential and personality. Most people who are not as successful as they’d like to be, have established targets that are disconnected from their strengths. They are aiming at goals that are not authentic. The strength and target disconnect is the biggest reason most people fail to reach their destinations.
We are all naturally very target oriented. My nine month old granddaughter just left our Beach Place loft. She is already setting goals and reaching them. She has goals to get fed. She has goals to get changed. She has goals to be held. As much as she loves her grandma and grandpa, she has goals to get back in her mommy and daddy’s arms. Although she has a ways to go, she is vocally communicating and working on forming words. She is crawling, standing up and will soon be working on faster means of cross-the-room transportation.
Goal achievement is the most natural thing in the world. We are teleological beings who are directed toward an end and shaped for purpose. In a USA Today interview, subjects were polled, “What would you ask God if you got a direct meeting?” By far, the majority of responses were to ask about purpose. “Why am I here?” Or, “What am I here to do?”
Do you struggle with setting goals?
Do you hate setting goals?
Do you fail to reach many or most of the goals you set?
For most of us, the reason is that our goals are not strengths-based…
Our Gifts have been severed from our Goals.
Our Aims are not Authentic.
Our Targets have been disconnected from our Talents.
Our Purpose has been detached from our Passion.
Our Vision has no connection to our Values.
We must forever give up the idea that most of our goals should be very hard and oriented around forcing ourselves to do things that we don’t want to do. I’ve watched people struggle with setting goals for years. I’ve struggled with it myself. Targets, to be the most effective, must be formed around your strengths. In the middle of every bulls-eye, should be a heart to represent your passion and a star to represent your natural talents.
Some people claim they have no goals… but even living in the moment without a goal is a kind of goal. It’s similar to the “psychotics dilemma”. Some people go into a fetal position to indicate they don’t want to communicate. But what are they doing? They are communicating. It’s the same with goal setting. To have no goals, is a goal.
See You On the Path!
Dale
Dale Cobb is the co-founder of SUCCESSPATH CAREER DEVELOPMENT. This post is based on material in his book,THE STRENGTHSPATH PRINCIPLE and The Strengthspath Time Manager. Copyright © 2018 Dale Cobb.Image from123rf.com. Used with permission.
