Goals – Your Direct Flight to Success

It is no secret that many successful, world-class industry leaders believe in the power of goal setting. This has been spoken, written in books, taught in seminars, and workshops around the globe; yet it seems some don’t truly pay much attention to it and wonder why they are not successful. Have you gotten on the plane to success yet? Or were you left behind, lingering and jumping from one stopover to another, never getting to your actual destination?

Why Goals Are the Portal to Success

Without goals, humans are merely living on autopilot. You wake up early, prepare for work, go to your nine-to-five job, eat meals, come home from an exhausting day, sleep your tiredness off, and repeat – all week long for 12 months, 365 days a year (minus the days off). And for many, that cycle goes on for years – even decades.

Guess what? There is NOTHING wrong with that! Except, it is ALL wrong when you have no direction or life has lost its meaning because of the routine you’ve gotten used to. If you set goals before you get started on anything, you know what you want to achieve, what will satisfy you, and what truly matters to you. You will only ever set a goal for something that means so much to you. A goal gets you out of autopilot mode and into a purposeful, passionate journey toward your dreams.

Goals defy demotivation and lack of focus. Sure, everyone experiences unproductive days once in a while. Without goals, you might listen to the distracting voice in your head that lures you into prioritizing low-value activities like watching TV or playing video games instead of working on that sales pitch or learning a new craft. With goals at the forefront, your motivation is sky-high and limitless. When you are having a bad day, your goals remind you that it is just one day and you can still make it better. They also nudge you when you are distracted. You just feel it there, there’s the writing on the wall that keeps you going every day: FOCUS.

Is There a Non-Direct Flight?

As previously mentioned, many people still slave around not knowing what they really want to do or have. But there are also those who do know what they want and keep getting caught up in other matters so it takes them longer than necessary to get there. Have you ever experienced thinking of doing something you’ve always wanted and then foregoing it to accommodate “other” things and end up never doing it? While you were doing the “other” less pressing matters, the one thing you should’ve gone to directly was the last thing you did, or worse, it was disregarded altogether. That’s called the flight that never reached its destination.

The Art of Goal Setting

How important is goal setting, really? It is so important that it should be taught in schools. Students and young adults should be studying it as part of their school’s curriculum. A Harvard study from the book What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School by Mark H. McCormack showed that between 1979 and 1989, 84% of Harvard graduates did not have clear, specific, written goals for their future. And while part of the remaining percentage did set goals, they didn’t put them in writing, which is a very important component of goal setting. The small percentage of graduates who set their goals and made plans to accomplish them were interviewed 10 years after the first study, and they were breaking records with their achievements.

If you look at goal setting as an art, it shouldn’t be that hard to actually sit down, get a piece (or a couple of pieces) of paper that won’t be thrown away, and start writing down your desires. Once you’ve written down your heart’s desires, study them and focus on what excites you the most. Whatever is aligned with your belief system and core values is the one that gets converted into a goal. When you’ve established your goal, meaning you’ve put it in black and white and set up plans to achieve it, you’re on a direct flight to the brimming world of success waiting for you at the top.