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Directions: Read the following article(s) and answer the questions that follow:
I'm sure this is not the first time you have heard about goal setting. The reason you keep hearing about it is because it really is important to your life. A good definition of goals is that they are dreams with deadlines. Yes, you can make your dreams come true. How do you want your life to be 10 years from now? How about 5 years, next year, or even 6 months from now.
The only difference between setting goals for your business or career, and setting personal goals is the subject matter. With commitment and persistence, and setting goals, your life can be any way you want it.
When you actually sit down and start identifying goals, you will probably end up with a long list. Decide what is most important to you in your business and personal lives. All goals do not have equal value. Some will be more meaningful to you. These are the goals to start on. Keep your list of the remaining goals to get back to later. Trying to do too much at the same time can be self-defeating.
Once you have selected the goals to start on, give each goal a deadline. Short term goals, such as completing a project, will be completed in six months or less. Medium term goals, such as increasing a customer base, or revenue, will be a yearly target. Your goal for career advancement could be in this time frame. Long term goals can run for several years, such as where do you want your business to be in 5 years, or building your nest egg to retire in 5, 10 or 20 years.
Write your goals down, as this increases commitment. Make your deadline for each goal realistic and reachable. There is no right or wrong on how long you determine it will take to reach a goal. It will be different for each person and each goal. Whatever is comfortable for you is what counts.
Okay, you have done this. Now, how do you get started? By identifying what you must do to accomplish your goals. Look at each one individually. Under each goal, write down the tasks to be undertaken to reach that goal. You may not think of everything to the smallest detail, but you will come up with the major tasks. Give each one of these tasks a deadline.
On short term goals, your deadlines will most likely be daily, weekly and monthly. On long term goals, deadlines are more like six months, first year, eighteen months, second year. You can break these down even further. If you know what you want to accomplish the first six months of a long term goal, what can you do this month, next month, etc. to get there. Include these tasks and their deadlines in your calendar, and schedule the time needed to work on them.
Once this is done with all your goals, you have made a contract with yourself and the commitment to take action. This is your road map to get you where you want to go. Each day, ask yourself if what you are doing is helping you get there. If the answer is no, be sure you know why you are doing it at all.
If all this seems difficult or overwhelming, start with just one goal. Make it easy and short term. Once you have accomplished this, go on to another goal. Remember that life is a journey to be enjoyed. Be kind to yourself. You will find by setting goals and identifying what you need to do to get there, will cut down on a lot of stress in your life. At the same time, you will be making those dreams a reality.
Here are a few good quotes to inspire you.
"Happiness, wealth, and success are by-products of goal setting, they cannot be the goal themselves." - Denis Waitley
"If you don't know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else." - Laurence J. Peter
"People have more options than they think they do. But most people spend more time planning their vacations than thinking about what they want to do with their lives." - Bob McDonald
"What you do every day should contribute to giving your life meaning. If it doesn't, why are you doing it?" - Don Hutcheson
Obtained from: http://www.icbs.com/Kb/inspiration/kb_reaching-your-goals.htm
We are ALWAYS at CHOICE. Sounds simple. For many things, this is an easy and empowering concept to embrace. Someone asks you out to dinner. Do you really want to go? You decide "yes" or "no". You're at choice. Someone asks you to do something you DON'T want to do. Again, you're at choice..."yes" or "no".
Yet, how many times have you said, or heard someone else repeatedly say, "I don't have a choice"? Deadlines. Big projects. Children. Commitments. Agreements. Board Meetings. Relationships. Look at anyone who is stressed, overwhelmed or filled with anxiety....and I'll show you a person who doesn't feel in control of their life. Our lives are filled with "have to's", "need to's" and "shoulds", which can bring great stress. When the stakes get larger, the idea of "choice" can go right out the window. In the eye of life's biggest challenges, I'd like to suggest that "YOU ARE ALWAYS AT CHOICE".
Let's take a commitment you've made at work. Perhaps a huge undertaking that is going to require extra hours, serious focus with a tight deadline. You originally committed enthusiastically to the project, and now it's impeding your life. The stress levels rise, and you find yourself overwhelmed because your health is being compromised, your family is demanding attention, and your "inner peace" has become a distant concept. You are saying to yourself, "I don't have a choice". " If I want to complete this project, and NOT lose my job - I HAVE TO WORK". Perhaps you know someone who has experienced this scenario, maybe even you.
In the face of "I don't have a choice"
…..you have choices.
4 CHOICES...
CHOICE #1 - STAY in the perspective of "I don't have a choice" WHILE RESISTING or RESENTING the original commitment. This is a CHOICE, whether you acknowledge it or not. When you choose "I don't have a choice" you are playing "victim" to your original commitment (or choice) and/or the circumstances that surround you. I call this running on "auto-pilot". "I made the commitment, I HAVE to follow through". No, you don't HAVE TO. Do you run on "auto-pilot" out of a sense of "integrity" or "have to"? In doing so, you're giving your power away to someone or something other than yourself. You'll likely feel stress, overwhelm, out of control and intense time pressures. The "choice" to stay in "I don't have a choice" is an energy drain and dis-empowering, and ultimately creates a negative impact on your performance and your health. Where are you RESISTING a CHOICE? This is a cop out choice.
CHOICE #2 - Make a new agreement. I'm big on keeping my word, however I believe it's even MORE important to "be at choice". And, often times creating a new agreement is best for YOU, and for all parties. This is often a simple and easy solution that brings power back to you.
CHOICE #3 - Explore alternative resources. When we're locked into "I don't have a choice", we're less likely to explore alternative resources or to accept help from others. Set aside your ego and the need to be "significant". Give up the notion of something "having" to be hard. Be WILLING for it to be easier. It doesn't always have to be a struggle. "Be at choice" and open yourself up to the alternatives. Ask a powerful question. One of my friends is always asking, "How can this be done more easily and efficiently?" Funny thing is, there is usually an easier way if we're open to it, and she is ALWAYS finding a way.
CHOICE #4 - ALIGN with your original CHOICE and DECIDE to ENJOY it or at the very least ACCEPT it. FIND SOMETHING THAT MAKES YOU FEEL GOOD ABOUT YOUR CHOICE - the challenge of it, working with a team, using your creativity, the feeling of accomplishment when the task is complete, knowing you're a person of your word, learning and growth opportunities, or simply CHOOSING to follow through and give your best. I'm not suggesting you PRETEND, or that this is always EASY. I am suggesting that even in the most challenging of situations there is ALWAYS a way to RE-FRAME things within yourself and re-align with CHOICE if you're open to that possibility. Focus on what excited you about the project in the first place. Focus on what following through with your choice will give you.
SOULFUL CHALLENGE: The next time you feel, "I don't have a choice"….STOP yourself. Do you really want to remain in RESISTANCE to your choice? Do you need to make a new agreement? What alternative resources are available? How can you align, ENJOY or accept your original choice with fresh eyes? Challenge yourself to live from a place of CHOICE. It's empowering.
Obtained from: http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/Allen35.html
One of my absolute favorite quotes is from Dwight D. Eisenhower. If you have been a subscriber for long you may have heard me use it before. Eisenhower said that, "The history of free men is never written by chance, but by choice – their choice.”
What a powerful truth. We can, and do, write our own history. That is, when our life is nearing the end, we can look back and see that the history we leave behind, the legacy that we leave for our children, is the accumulation of the choices we made all along the way.
As I think about this, I realize that some may view it from the back end and it may seem hopeless, but we can be proactive about it and decide now that we will begin to make choices that will bring us to our desired end.
Before I talk about privilege, opportunity, and responsibility, I want to make something perfectly clear, and it is something that you must embrace if you are going to see your life continually improve and change for the better. I believe that…
Anyone can have as much money as they choose to.
Anyone can weigh what they choose to.
Anyone can have the job they choose to have.
Anyone can have the level of peace that they choose to have.
Anyone can do anything they choose to do.
They ability for us humans to choose is incredible, but it also brings with it philosophical truths as well. Primarily the power to choose brings with it privilege, opportunity and responsibility. When we see how all three of these play out in our lives, and when we discipline ourselves to make the choices that will bring us to our desired outcome – watch out – because you will be UNLEASHED!
The Ability to choose is a Privilege.
Dogs don’t have it. Cows don’t have it. Trees and flowers don’t have it. The only living creatures that have the ability to choose are humans. All of the rest of living creatures live by instinct, or in the case of trees, flowers etc, they live wherever they are planted (I guess they must have to develop a great deal of contentment!).
Have you ever viewed your ability to choose as a privilege that you have been given? That is one of the more motivating factors in my life for being disciplined and making choices. Exercise your privilege today. Make choices today that will make you, your family and your community better off!
The Ability to choose is an Opportunity.
Every one of us has the opportunity to improve ourselves. There are too many stories of people who have lost 200 pounds, left behind fortunes while only earning $20,000 a year and multitudes of other success stories for me to believe otherwise. In fact, I myself have seen it in my own life. What an opportunity! Yet many believe that it is impossible – that they don’t even have the opportunity. Not true at all. Take advantage of the opportunity you have every single day of your life to change – because you can!! Make choices today that will make you, your family and your community better off!
The Ability to choose is a Responsibility.
We do not live our lives in a vacuum. We live them in the context of our families, our communities, our businesses and the organizations we belong to. We have a responsibility to make right choices that will positively impact all of those around us!
I have four children. The choices I make each day, maybe even every moment, will affect them for the rest of their lives. Do I have a responsibility to them? You bet! I want to discipline my life in such a way that they become all that they can be and that our family and eventually the families that they will start, will become great!
When I think of choices that changed history, I think of Rosa Parks who made a choice that would bring her into the forefront of America’s news of the day and eventually the history books. One day, Parks, an African-American, decided that she would not give up her seat on the bus to a white person. She made a choice. It was undoubtedly one she had thought of for sometime. It was her privilege as a human to make this choice, regardless of what others thought and regardless of what the outcome would be. It was an opportunity to make a statement and to stand up for what was right. It was her responsibility to generations of minorities who would come after her to make this choice. She did, and America changed.
Like Rosa Parks, and countless others who daily make choices that produce change, it is those who will dare to dream of a better life, those who will risk failure, those who will make the right choices who will change themselves, their families, their businesses and organizations and yes, even their world! The ability to choose is an incredible privilege, an outstanding opportunity, and an awesome responsibility! Use it!
Obtained from: http://www.madeforsuccess.com/ArticleDetail.asp?topic_id=12&art_id=139