Personal Development;Life Enhancement;Achievement
Posts tagged achieving goals
Achieve Happily or Happily Achieve
Sep 17th
“Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.” ~Colette
When I was younger, the ink barely dry on my University diploma, I was very focused on achieving goals. Like many others, I wanted to earn a lot of money, live in a great home and drive the right car. I was sure that once I achieved these things – then I would be happy and you know what? I did achieve them, rapidly, and I was happy – at least for a little while.
This all sounds okay doesn’t it? I set goals about things that were important to me, took action, learned and adjusted, took more action and eventually I achieved these goals and felt great, a real sense of accomplishment, once they were done. So what’s the point here – what’s the issue?
The issue is that I was miserable and/or unhappy much of the time that I was working towards my goals. I wasn’t miserable or unhappy because I had to be – I often felt unpleasant emotions because those were the rules that I operated under! I used pain to drive myself to achievement – and I only allowed myself to feel great once things were done.
Achieve then be Happy or Happily Achieve?
I can clearly remember the day that I realized I had a choice about how I motivated myself and that I actually could choose different rules that enabled me to feel great (or ecstatic or blissful or endlessly curious or expecting the best or any combination of these and many other positive emotions) while I was working towards my goals. What a revelation!
I was early into my NLP training, now nearly 20 years ago as I write this, and we were looking at the structure of effective motivation strategies. I will get into topic in great detail in future entries, but for today, here is my point and my question: How do you choose to feel while you are working towards your goals? Do you make sure that you feel great along the way or are you working to get things done and then you will feel great?
Till next time faithful readers…Jack
“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise man grows it under his feet.” ~James Openheim
How Far Should You Plan Your Life?
Feb 24th
“If you don’t have a plan for yourself, you’ll be part of someone else’s”. ~American proverb
Last time I talked about my new laptop running Windows 7. I’ve been using it many hours a day for a couple of weeks now and I still love it. Windows 7 is a great improvement over Vista, so much so that I am going to convert two of my other computers to run Windows 7. And the new Sony Vaio “F” series? I have never had a computer boot up and settle down so quickly and the hd screen and blu-ray player are just great!
How Far Should You Plan Your Life?
How far should you plan your life? In my opinion: as far you’d like to be alive living it! In more practical terms, I encourage my clients to have motivating and exciting goals that go out at least 10 years. In 10 years you can accomplish virtually anything – as long as you use those 10 years wisely.
Planning and goal setting go hand in hand. I set goals that excite me and then I put together the best plan that I can, to make that goal happen. Does that mean that goal setting and planning happen at the same time? Generally speaking – no. For most people, and most businesses, the process of setting goals and the process of making plans to achieve those goals should be very separate. For companies beyond a certain size, goal setting and creating workable plans to achieve those goals may even be best done by different groups of people. I’ll talk more about this separation of creation and planning in larger companies in another post.
Do You Have 10 Years of Exciting Goals?
If yes – great! Congratulations! Now go set some great and motivating goals 15 years out and soon we will talk about the process of creating plans to make these goals part of your everyday reality.
You don’t have any goals that go out 10 years or more? Then here is some homework. Remembering that you can accomplish virtually anything in 10 years, and being completely unconcerned (at this time) about what it will take to make these goals a reality; set at least 3 goals that stretch out at least 10 years. If you need a little help, consider these questions:
If you were certain that you could accomplish it, in the next 10 years,
- Where would you like to be living?
- How much money would you like to have saved?
- What would you be doing for a living?
Next time I’ll talk more about 10 year goals – big goals – and a great attitude for creating these goals. (And soon I’ll give you a simple technique to put yourself in a great mental frame for setting exciting, compelling and authentic goals.).
Till next time faithful reader…Jack
“Wishing consumes as much energy as planning”. ~American proverb