Dream with Deadline - Goal
Dream with deadline – Goal
Fulfillment of dreams and achievement of success whether in personal or professional life depends on execution of series of planned efforts over a period of time; plans made to make dreams come true. Although, there may always be some lucky souls enjoying success by chance, but for many - success is seldom a one - time game.
Goals are dreams that need to be achieved for oneself or others and so the terms goals / dreams are used interchangeably in this article.
The question arises, how does one get to choose a goal for oneself or know which dream to follow? Is there a revelation that takes place or does one need to go to some wise man to know what his life’s goals should be, or is it neither?
Hundreds of books describe numerous concepts of and models for making goals and achieving them. Usually one’s goals are a combination of short term goals (achievable within one year) and long term goals (attainment of which takes 3-5 years time and at times even beyond that). Achievement of smaller goals creates feeling of great motivation and a sense of winning that enables determination for consistent growth, and development towards bigger goals.
One type of goals is corporate objectives and KRAs (Key Result Areas) - set by the line managers, as an annual performance management exercise, achievement of which yields rewards at the year end. The other type is KRAs that entail personal development of the individual e.g. educational enhancement, training of a specific skill set, diversified exposure to take on higher responsibilities in future etc.
However, as these KRAs are tied with and the company’s goals they may not be able to include all areas of an individual’s personal objectives, and therefore, such objectives may need extra attention of the individual. Individuals have some idea or the other that they have been thinking about for a long time but for reasons unknown felt like planning to implement in later part of their lives. These are important things, as the thought of implementing such ideas gives a sense of fulfillment and yields enormous amount of satisfaction.
On the contrary, there are many who are not aware of such ideas. Consequence of having no personal goals directs to low motivation and zeal which questions power and performance in long run.
One of the interesting ways of understanding areas for identifying areas where one may need to set goals is the concept of wheel of life.
If your circle is round and wheel– like then it is a happier and healthier style of life that you enjoy. If it is flat, triangular or nowhere near a circle or wheel-like figure then you know which areas are of concern and you need to set your goals for.?????????
The wheel of life: Consider this big circle as an 8 slice pizza. Each slice is a driver that influences one’s life and a full circle denotes healthy wheel of life. On a scale of 1-10 (‘10’ being the outer edge of circle reflecting maximum amount of time devoted to that area, and ‘1’ being just above center of the circle reflecting the most limited time dedicated to an area.
Let us take 2 minutes to look at this pizza and make a note of how much of your time does each slice consume during a day. Mark each area with a dash and once you are done join all the dashes around, remaining within the circle, to form another circle inside the pizza circle.
It is supposed to form a wheel shape. Look at your wheel inside the pizza circle and analyze it for a while. Imagine if this circle that you have drawn was to be one of the four wheels of your car, how would your car run? Or would it be able to run at all? Insightful!
E.g. the above table shows that an individual has marked ‘4’ in Health, ‘4’ in Faith, ‘2’ in physical fitness & Exercise, ‘5’ in Friends and ‘3’ in personal growth. Joining all dashes gives a pointed umbrella like shape and not a circle, which means imbalance.
For a wheel like this, one may be spending too much time with friends but giving less than required attention to his ‘health’ and ‘personal growth’. He may need to work on his physical health and ‘personal growth’ as without the two he cannot live a motivated life, which is prerequisite for being successful at anything.
Most of us have been a victim of errands waging to consume ourselves to matters of little significance, and we waste a good amount of our time doing this. It is high time we realize it and do something about it. If there is anything relating to any o f these areas - that you have been dreaming about or wanting to do or stop doing for your good but somehow have been holding it abeyant for long - this year may be the right time to act on them.
A Chinese proverb says: Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is a noble art of leaving things undone the wisdom of life is eliminating the non-essentials
Having made a goal or set of goals is important, but having it in writing where it gets your attention each day becomes wildly important. What is in front of us, asks us ‘achieve me’, ‘I am left’, ‘attention please’, like a utility bill or a fee voucher hanging over the fridge door, reminding of its existence and wanting some action. Seeing goals each day is highly important, as it keeps the focus in place and efforts in right direction.
Just as identifying what to achieve, writing a goal is also easy. Write your goal and ask yourself these questions:
- Is the goal clear enough on what to achieve?
- Is it stretching / challenging yet practically achievable?
- Did I define how I will measure how much of it has been achieved?
- By what time should I achieve it? It cannot be a goal forever, has to have a deadline
Hint: Think of the things that you would want to ‘start doing’ or ‘stop doing’ this year, a habit that you want to quit, or a habit that you would want to develop. Set a goal that brings greater feeling of achievement and fulfillment to you. As they say if you do not follow your dreams someone else will hire you follow theirs. Happy Goal Oriented Year !