As a track and field runner in middle and high school, every year I would sit down with my coach and set a series of goals for the season. What times would I like to run that year? Which races would I like to win? etc. Once we had set my goals for the year, we would create a training plan and race schedule so I could achieve those goals.
Before I got a coach, I used to run aimlessly. No plan, no target races. I would just run in races whenever I was asked to by my club or school. More often than not I would end up injured and find my season ending in achieving very little.
Once I got a coach, everything changed. We worked together to set my goals and target races, and my times over 800 and 1,500 meters tumbled down. I started winning races that mattered and began enjoying my sport. This annual process taught me from a very early age that goals are important if I want to achieve the things that are important to me.
This article will talk about why goals do matter and will give you a clear, specific plan for setting a smart goal, whether they are personal or business that work time and time again.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- How goals lead you to success
- Most people fail to achieve their goals, why?
- Setting your SMART goal
- How to actually achieve your SMART goal (and become successful)
- The key to success — putting everything together
How goals lead you to success
If you do not have any goals, you drift. You get pushed and pulled in all sorts of directions by your work, your colleagues, your friends and your family. Often, these directions are not the direction you want to go in and you end up right back where you started, or worse, in a place you never wanted to be in the first place.
Just about anything you want to achieve in life, making a plan and a goal to achieve it is the only way you will make progress and give yourself a chance to achieve it.
Goals give you a direction, they give you a purpose to wake up in the morning. They help you to see things from a completely different and more positive perspective.
Most people fail to achieve their goals, why?
Setting and achieving goals is not easy, many people fail. A study by Scranton University found that only 8% of those who set new year goals actually achieve them, meaning 92% who set new year goals fail. Why is that?
The problem is that many people see goals, such as new year resolutions, as hopes and wishes. They hope they will lose some weight, they wish to start their own business or they hope to get a better job. The problem with “hoping” and “wishing” for something is there is no plan, no purpose and no time frame set for achieving the goals. Once these hopes and wishes come face to face with the realities of daily life, they soon dissolve into lost hope and wishful thinking.
So in order to really achieve something, you need a concrete goal — a SMART goal is a good one.
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