Ever hear the phrase, “It’s a worthy goal”? What exactly is a worthy goal? Is it worthy to us or to others who tell us it is an admirable feat? What exactly is a goal, anyway? And what if we do not accomplish all of our little projects? Does that mean a goal was not worthy, or are we the ones who feel worthless due to our failure?
This blog post is the first in a series of articles devoted to setting and achieving goals. But WAIT! Don’t click away just yet. These are not the so-called SMART goals (Don’t get me started on that!) Nor is this a fluffy rehash from a “motivational” speech. It’s not anything you have heard or read before. This method is about truly getting the RESULTs you want!
Many times, people do not follow through with good intentions because they EXPECT to fail. The term “Resolutionaries” is one I first heard in a gym decades ago, between two of the people exercising there.
One gym rat in early January asked another gym rat, “Who are all these people in here? And out of nowhere”! The second gym rat, the one on steroids replied, “Oh, these are all the Resolutionaries. You know, all those people who make New Year’s resolutions? Don’t worry, they will all be gone by mid-February”.
They wanted their gym back and free from all of the chubby people trying to better themselves. But sadly, the gym rat was right.
So, why do we see this time and time again? Perhaps even within ourselves. People make a commitment to personal growth and then, well things just don’t go as planned.
We get down in the dumps feeling like a failure. We’ve all been there before, and no one wants to go back. Why do we submit ourselves to torture? In fact, we don’t. I believe it is because those goals were never OF them.
They chase the goal instead of becoming the goal. The fear of failure has left us devastated. But in those instances, we only truly fail if we refuse to learn.
Yes, the beginning of the year may be convenient, but so is this Thursday at Noon. Waiting for the opportune time is just an excuse to procrastinate. And let's face it, there's never a perfect time for anything. Besides, the majority of those would-be achievements tend to find their way to our mental dustbin by February if not late-January.
There are several issues with the concept of waiting until the beginning of the new calendar. Namely, the waiting. I have been criticizing this idea for over a decade.
So, if it is a worthwhile goal, it is worth starting right away, or at least sometime this week. But still, is the goal worthy of YOU?
What we call goals; I personally refer to as growth challenges. Does the goal truly match your values? Is it one you feel strongly about or one that was assigned to you because it’s thought to be the thing you should be doing? Talk about setting one up for failure.
Again, is your attempt one that fits within your principles or what you value?
There are millions of professionals who were once told as a teenager to become a physician or CPA, or this or that. They might have graduated and accomplished the task, but the accomplishment doesn't mean much because it was never a part of THEM. All growth challenges, which is what goals are, must come from within.
A goal, just like your personality, or your life’s work is a part of you. And just as if someone found our persona to be crude, uncouth or obnoxious, we might feel shame.
To some extent, we all fail. And in this “I’m a winner, too” culture, it hits us pretty hard. But that need not be the case. Failure only is one if we refuse to learn from the experience.
Taking ownership of a task, succeed or fail, is where a goal originates. And that ownership exists because it is part of us. The real question is, does this goal align with my values and who I am?
And that brings us to the first of six goalsetting principles, being Referential. Does a particular goal align with our values? If not, it may not be a worthy goal after all. If we cannot truly “own” the project, it’s just not worth chasing.
Over the next few weeks, I will introduce a new Challenge Principle in its own article. I hope you join me on what has been a decade’s journey for me in finding out what goal setting is, or at least should, be all about. See you next week.
- Aside from visuals and basic editing, all content in this article is my own work and was written without the use of AI.
For further on reading on this topic: https://www.forbes.com/sites/markmurphy/2022/10/30/smart-goals-5-shocking-reasons-why-they-might-be-dumb/?utm_source=chatgpt.com