Lesson Well Learned

Lately, as described in The Importance of Happiness I’ve been experiencing a lot of powerful inspiration to get things done, but found myself bouncing between tasks a little too often to accomplish anything of great importance. Little did I know that the book I’d been reading, Never Eat Alone, by Keith Ferrazzi, would offer a solution to my roaming efforts. Keith’s book is all about how to properly form relationships with others, and how to use those relationships to help you to succeed at whatever you choose to do. I was enraptured from beginning to end, but there was one chapter in particular that I paid special attention to - the chapter about goals.

• What’s so important about goals?

I’d always considered the idea of setting goals to be important, but it had always been that type of important that was only important theoretically - I never actively wrote down my goals (I’m speaking mostly about long term goals) and set up a plan to accomplish them. I thought that just having the mentality of improving myself would suffice. According to Ferrazzi, I’m not entirely wrong about this, as a study showed that students having rough goals in their mind made approximately twice as much as those that did not. However, the magic really kicked in when I heard the statistics for students who actively wrote down their goals. It seems that these fantastic scholars made not triple, not even quadruple, but ten times as much as the other students. That’s a pretty good reason to start writing down some targets for the next year or so, if you ask me.

So that’s exactly what I did. I decided to start with things that I’d like to have completed by the end of the month. I picked my top three tasks, and developed a plan of action for each one, and started working towards their completion the very next day. It’s only been a week since I’ve started, and I’m already ecstatic with the results.

• How do I form my goals?

Ask yourself questions: What really makes you happy? What do you wish you could do? A lot of the questions I suggest in my post about Stagnation are relevant here, too. These questions are heavy - they’re going to require some time to think about and answer appropriately, so set aside a sizeable chunk of time to really follow through on this.

Make sure you write these things down! It’ll make it easier to pick and choose what your goals should be, and as stated above, putting pen to paper has a significant effect on a person’s ability to retain and follow through with goals. It’s also a lot easier to half-answer a question in your head than it is to write down such a response. Notating things really forces you to know what you’re thoughts are, and that’s exactly the point here.

• How do I start following my goals?

This is really quite simple; pick something, or any number of things, from your list of goals, and think about the steps you need to take to accomplish it. Figure out what you need to do and when you need to do it. Create a schedule. Then, follow it!

Put your schedule somewhere where you can see it regularly. Make copies, and put them in multiple places - on your fridge, in your car, next to your bed. I actually set my goals for the month as my desktop background to make it absolutely impossible for me to overlook them. That way, I have to look at them every single time I use my computer, and I’m reminded of what I have yet to do and how far I’ve come already.


It’s a really fulfilling experience to be able to see that you’re actively accomplishing things you want to do with your life, be they as simple as making a new friend, or as grandiose as starting a brand new business from scratch. No matter what your goals may be, if you really work towards them, you’ll find that you can do just about anything you set your mind to.

---

Share on Facebook

This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 22:08 and is filed under Productivity and Motivation, Mental Health, Self Improvement, Happiness. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.